


Fortress Defense

by RiceArchbishop



Category: Team Fortress 2, 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Phoenix Wright Kink Meme, Police Incompetence, Team Fortress Logic, eventual action, no not that kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-04-08 00:10:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4283223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiceArchbishop/pseuds/RiceArchbishop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red Team's grocery run ended with a totaled supermarket, many victims, and nine imprisoned mercenaries. They're offering a million dollars for each professional killer their defense can get off the hook.</p>
<p>This naturally attracts a certain team of Ace Attorneys, but they've got their work cut out for them. After all, there's no way the mercs are actually innocent... right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This uses the first fill for [this prompt](http://pw-kink-meme.dreamwidth.org/3082.html?thread=7665418) as a jumping-off point, many thanks to the anon who wrote it. Reviews are love.

“Er…” said Apollo, “okay. Yeah, this is definitely the scene of the crime. Many crimes were committed here.”

The trio stood at the edge of the… well, the only really appropriate word was “blast radius.” What had once been a decent place to buy kale was now a battlefield, with craters pocking the lawn and holes of varying sizes allowing one to see the inside of the store from the outside. Phoenix had a moment of sympathy for the poor groundskeepers who would have to deal with that. 

Not that they’d be able to do anything for a while, of course- the scene was absolutely swarming with police. As they crossed the tape, Apollo spotted a familiar figure in white in the middle of all the blue. “You guys should probably start the evidence hunt,” he said. “I’ll get the initial reports from Ema.” 

Phoenix nodded distractedly, already headed inside. Athena took a moment to lay a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “She’s probably running on nothing but coffee and snackoos by now. Try not to grate on her too much.”

He grimaced. “How many cases have you worked with Ema Skye?”

“Just the one with you, with the fish.”

“And what do you think my odds of ‘not grating on her’ are?”

Athena winced. “Maybe just try not to speak.”

“I’ll keep that in mind…” Apollo muttered as he headed in Ema’s direction. 

Detective Skye certainly did seem to be at the end of her rope. She glared at him as he approached, her fingers twitching as if they itched to fire a stream of snackoos at his face. Apollo checked her over again- it wasn’t that she was restraining herself, she seemed to actually be out of ammunition. _How long has she been out here?_ he thought to himself.

“Justice.” She said as he reached her. 

“Ema. Er… how’s it going?”

Apollo was suddenly glad that looks could not, in fact, kill. “I’ve been here all night taking statements and herding this cat farm the city has the _nerve_ to call a police force. This is a forensic scientist’s _dream playground_ and I’m talking to _bystanders!_ So please, _please_ tell me you’re just here to see the mess and not because…”

“We’re the defense.”

“God _damn_ it.” She took a deep breath. “Right. Of course you are. Fine. You’ll be wanting the initial autopsies of the victims, I take it?”

“Actually yeah, that’d be really help-“ Apollo cut off as a stack of documents the size of his head, spikes included, was pushed toward him. “Are these…?”

“Yup.” Ema’s glasses slid into place. “Your clients are thorough- diverse, too. It’s a veritable buffet of CODs. Bat to the head, burnt to a crisp, blown to bits, swiss cheese’d by _way_ too many bullets, decapitated, exploded, decapitated THEN exploded, headshot, knife in the back, windpipe crushed, and one poor guy who was poisoned.”

“…Poisoned? With what?”

“We’re honestly not sure. The guy had about twenty-five syringes stuck in him, and the lab is gonna be figuring out what the hell was in them for a while. Coulda just been the blood loss, it’s a toss-up what got to him first.”

“…Right.” Apollo hefted the stack of autopsies. “See you in court, then.” She gave a single, pointed grunt, turning to go. “Er, Ema?” _That glare is really quite impressive. Although I don’t think the eye twitch is voluntary at this point._ He dug into his pocket, withdrawing a bag of snackoos. He tossed them her way. “Here.”

Ema’s eyes darted between Apollo and the bag of chocolaty goodness in her hands. “I-“ she stuttered, her brow furrowed intently. She looked as if she could barely believe what she was seeing. “Damn it, Apollo. Now I feel bad for yelling at you.”

The corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. “Don’t worry about it.”


	2. Chapter 2

The interior of the grocery store was just as much a mess as the exterior, if not more so thanks to the various liquids, vegetables, and other chum blown about like ingredients in a trendy smoothie. 

“Soooooo…” Athena said, nose wrinkling at the smell of pulped food products left untouched overnight. Widget had turned a rather novel shade of green. “Where do we start?” 

Phoenix tapped his chin thoughtfully, looking up at what was left of the ceiling. “This place is pretty trashed, but there were definitely security cameras… see if you can find out anything about their system; if we can find the tapes it would help us quite a lot.” 

Athena nodded. “Looks like that’s the remnants of the day manager’s office over there… seems like as good a place as any to investigate.” 

“Good…” The boss’ attention had been drawn by something in the produce section. “I’m going to look around over here, see what I can find.” 

That was fine by Athena. The smells emanating from those aisles were almost nausea-inducing even at this range. She turned, heading for the small office near the front of the store. It was pretty beaten up, like the rest of the place, but it looked like the additional walls had shielded it somewhat. She flashed her badge at the attending police officer, ducking inside.

They were in luck: judging from the banks of monitors on the far side of the room, this doubled as the security office. A detective was there, frowning at the keyboard. 

“Need a hand there?” Athena asked, coming up behind him. 

He turned, brow furrowing at the sight of her badge, then blanching as he recognized her. Athena always wondered why she was still infamous among the force- she’d only judo thrown _one_ officer. Well, two. If you counted the drunk one. But he’d been off the clock at the time, so he really shouldn’t count. 

He stuttered something about not needing help, but she pushed past him, establishing a link between her glove and the computer with a couple of quick gestures. Honestly, how anyone did anything without a haptic interface was completely beyond her. “Er, miss?” The detective tapped her on the shoulder. “This computer is evidence, you can’t just…” He jumped as she growled in frustration.

“No, it’s really not,” she said, powering on the monitors so he could see. “There’s nothing on here. I can’t even boot it properly.” She started pacing, furiously typing commands into her virtual keyboard. “Well, actually, I guess it _is_ evidence- this thing has been wiped. Thoroughly. What was supposed to be on here? No, don’t tell me,” she said as the officer opened his mouth. “The security footage. Of course. And you’ll be taking it to the lab to try and find out more?”

The detective’s expression moved from overwhelmed to confused as she crawled under the desk to inspect the computer itself. “Er, yeah, I’m kind of the tech detective so they sent me to do a first pass… I was trying to tell you that I couldn’t get it to…”

He was cut off once again by a shout of “Eureka!” from beneath the desk. Athena emerged, looking triumphant. “The tech detective, huh? And you missed _this?_ ” She shoved her discovery under his nose. 

In case the purpose of the grey box with wires protruding from it wasn’t clear enough from its displays, someone had helpfully put the words “ELECTRO-SAPPER” across the top in great big letters. “ _Voila!_ ” Athena said. “Someone used this thing to hack the computer and delete all the security footage.”

The detective looked at her askance. “I don’t see why you’re so happy about that. Obviously those mercs did it to try to cover their tracks.”

Her smile fell a bit. The police could be so _dense_ sometimes. “ _Or_ somebody else erased it to cover up the fact that the mercs were framed.”

“That’s… hardly conclusive…”

Widget flicked to an annoyed orange. **Stop raining on my parade!** the little electronic bauble said. “A single piece of evidence rarely is,” Athena added. “We’ll be adding this to the court record.” Tucking the sapper under her arm, she strode out.

~~~~~~~~

Phoenix took in the view of the produce section, brow furrowed. He’d done two circuits of the entire store so far, just to double-check the pattern of destruction. Small pockets of shelving and goods had survived throughout the place, particularly if there didn’t seem to have been any victims in the area. It seemed that whoever had done this had been more concerned with eliminating the shoppers than destroying the inventory, but the goods had been pretty thoroughly ravaged as well.

…Except here. Phoenix frowned intently at the stand of fruit in front of him. Athena trotted up next to him, something tucked under her arm. She looked quizzically at the stand, then at him.

“Er, boss? Why are you staring at the bananas?”

“Because there are bananas to stare at,” he replied. “Look around, everything’s been wrecked to more or less the same extent… except for this one thing.”

Athena shrugged. “It’s a little odd, sure… but what significance could it have?” 

“Not sure, but I’m going with my gut on this one. Who knows, maybe orangutans are the actual culprits and they respected the bananas too much to blow them up. Get some photos and add them to the record.” Phoenix eyed the box tucked under her arm. “That’s from the office?”

“Yup.” Widget’s camera clicked. “It’s some kind of sapper, looks like it was used to erase all the security footage. Have a look.”

Phoenix took the proffered sapper. “Wow,” he said, “this thing is old school. I suppose the science of frying a hard drive hasn’t changed all that much, though.”

“Whose hard drive got fried?” Apollo asked as he came up, toting a stack of documents. 

“The security office’s,” Athena said, grimacing. **Just our luck.** “Yeah, that.”

Apollo’s grimace matched her own. “Boss, you wanna have a look at these?” he asked, hefting the autopsies. “They actually make for a pretty fascinating read.” 

Taking the files, Phoenix flipped through the stack. “Well,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “this will be interesting. Apollo, why don’t you make a loop of the place, see what those eyes of yours can spot?”

Apollo nodded, heading towards the opposite end of the store. Athena peeked over at the files as she uploaded her pictures to the court record. “Huh,” she said, paling a bit. “I didn’t know necks could do that.”

~~~~~~~~

_Spilled soda, destroyed shelves, cornflakes scattered like confetti…_ Apollo’s eyes darted from one scene of carnage to the next as he searched for anything out of place. That was easier said than done, of course: between the bullet holes, the craters, and the shredded goods, pretty much everything was out of place. _Remember what Phoenix said,_ he thought to himself. _Take a step back, turn your thinking around._ He took a deep breath, readjusting his focus. _Ignore everything you’d expect to see in the aftermath of a supermarket showdown. Concentrate on abnormalities._

Something glinted at him from the back of a rack of shelves.

_Gotcha._ He reached in, wrinkling his nose- between the copious amounts of shattered glass and the pungent smell, this must have been the liquor section. Fumbling around at the back of the shelves, he came back with a small metal orb, a little larger than the pad of his thumb. He frowned at it intently. It was fairly light, as though it might be hollow, and had what looked like a tiny speaker. Whatever it was, it certainly didn’t belong in the liquor section. “HEY GUYS!” he yelled at his co-workers. “I THINK I FOUND A CLUE!”

**_fsssssh_ **


	3. Chapter 3

Something was nudging his shoulder. Distantly, he could hear a voice calling his name.

Apollo struggled back to consciousness, the bright lights of the supermarket forcing him to squint. A face swam into view- he recognized the absurdly long ponytail before his befuddled brain could place the face. Within a few seconds, he could make out her confused, slightly concerned expression. “Sleeping on the job, Apollo? That’s not like you.” 

He groaned, hefting himself into a sitting position. There was a massive pounding in his head- what the hell had happened? He’d been inspecting the marble-thing from the shelves and now… he was on the floor, dripping wet. He took Athena’s outstretched hand.

“Thanks… did I collapse? And why am I wet?”

“Yeah, we came over to see what you’d found and you were conked out. The boss went to get you some medical attention, I volunteered to stay here. No idea why you’re wet, though.” **I dumped water on you to try and wake you up!**

Apollo raised an eyebrow. Athena had the decency to blush.

“Well it worked, didn’t it? And you don’t look too badly hurt, so hey, high fives all around!”

“…Right. Sure.” Apollo made a mental note to bring up “abuse and safety in the workplace” with Phoenix again. He didn’t hold out much hope on that front, though; the last time he’d mentioned it, the older attorney had chuckled and counseled him to consider it training for his cases against Franziska von Karma. 

He noticed, somewhat belatedly, that the marble-thing he’d been examining was still clutched in his hand. “Hey, Athenaaaaaugh what the-“ A strong pair of hands had seized him by the shoulders and pushed him into a sitting position on a nearby overturned shelf. He recognized Ema right before the detective shined a penlight in his eye. “Ema, what are you-“

“Shush,” she admonished. “Sit still and let me check you over. Doesn’t look like you have a concussion…” He felt hands patting down his head. “No blood, this helmet you call a hairstyle must have protected you.”

“Hey, it’s not _that_ -“

“Shush. How the hell did you manage to get knocked out with nobody around? You’re incredible, really.” 

“For one, the universe hates me. For two, I think it might have been this thing.” He held up the small metal sphere. 

Ema’s focus immediately shifted from poking at his noggin to the device. She snatched it, a magnifying glass appearing from her bag. “Huh… completely smooth except for this… speaker? Microphone? Something like that.” She glanced sidelong at Apollo. “I’m going to have to take this into the lab.”

“Please do. And maybe let us know what it is _before_ the trial starts this time.” 

Ema grimaced. “No promises. They’re super backed up.” One of her eyebrows slowly rose. “Well… I suppose I might be able to do the analysis myself. Since, y’know, the lab is slammed. And we’re supposed to be promoting a dialogue and all.”

Apollo managed to keep his grin mostly under control. “Thanks, Ema. You’re the best.” 

She snorted. “If I were the best I could pass that frickin’ exam.” Her expression softened a bit. “Still, thanks. Try to avoid getting knocked out again.”

“No promises.”

Ema grumbled something about “accident-prone attorneys” as she left, still inspecting the little sphere. Apollo stretched as he stood, glancing at Athena…

Who was grinning so broadly she could have swallowed an ocean. Shit. That never boded well. “What’s so entertaining?” he asked, dreading the answer.

“She liiiiiiikes youuuuuu,” Athena practically sang at him. “Detective Skye is totally into you.”

Apollo looked at her flatly. “…What.”

“She practically ran over to help when she heard you’d collapsed! She’s irritable and tired and she _still_ wanted to make sure you were okay.” Athena was still grinning like a madwoman. 

_I’m never going to hear the end of this,_ Apollo thought miserably. _It was bad enough after the Themis Academy case…_ He cleared his throat. “Objection. Ema and I have a rapport, yeah, but…” 

Athena waved away his objection with a flick of her wrist. “Oh, please, I could hear her heart. She cares. She’s kinda annoyed at your existence, but she cares.”

Apollo frowned loudly at her. “…We do have a case to investigate, you know,” he said, pointedly walking back towards the entrance. The best way to deal with a nosy Athena was the same as the way to deal with a nosy Trucy: studiously ignore her until she deflated. His co-worker might have legendary amounts of energy and a very active imagination, but Apollo was damn near a professional ignorer of things. 

He still couldn’t quite block out Athena’s cheerful humming as she followed him out.

~~~~~~~~

The combined desks of the Wright Anything Agency had proven incapable of holding the mess of files that made up the incident reports, autopsies, and various profiles. It had extended to the couch, several chairs, less-trod parts of the floor, and was now glancing meaningfully toward the kitchen counter. Phoenix frowned at it as he sidestepped one of its many papery tentacles. “How’s it coming along?”

Athena’s tired eyes looked up at him from within the fortress of manila she and Apollo had established as their main base of operations. “Not great,” she admitted. “Between the ballistics reports, the autopsies, and the police reports, the destruction was definitely caused by the mercs’ weapons. And they fully admit to having _brought_ the weapons to the store.” **What kind of psycho brings a rocket launcher shopping?** Widget chimed in. 

“Not a very bright one,” Apollo said, remembering his interview with the soldier. “According to the arresting officer, he _very definitively_ stated that those weapons were theirs. Most of them had to be sedated before they could be arrested.”

“The Russian guy, the one you said went on and on about ‘Sasha’?” Athena added, glancing at a file. “He took _eighteen_ darts. And he’s perfectly healthy today.” Athena’s brow furrowed. “What is he _made_ of?”

Phoenix sipped his coffee. “Yeah… concerning Mr. Doe, our friend with the rocket launcher? Does his file mention him being married?”

“Um…” Apollo thumbed through the stack to his left, snagging a file and riffling through it. “No. He’s a registered public defender in like three states, though. Not a very good one, though, apparently he managed to get _himself_ declared guilty along with his client at least once. He did get an apartment with someone, though… a ‘Zhanna’? Could be a woman’s name.”

Phoenix heaved a sigh. “Right. Well. We have a very scary guest in the waiting room by that name who’s claiming to be his wife. She wasn’t lying that I could see, but I wanted to confirm. Athena, could you get a read on her?”

Athena nodded, heading out. Apollo sank into the chair she had vacated, pushing a heavily-annotated file towards Phoenix. “This is the summary we’ve created of the case so far,” he said. Phoenix’s finger traced down the evidence listings, brow furrowing as he did so. “In short,” Apollo continued, “it’s not great. These guys are professional killers, the weapons that committed the crime- crimes plural, sorry- are definitely theirs, and we don’t have much to suggest they didn’t actually do it.” 

“We’ve dealt with worse. What about the prosecution’s witness?”

“Her name is…” Apollo checked through another file. “Faye Daed. Nothing too out-of-the-ordinary there, she’s single, lives on the west side of town, moved here about two months ago.” He passed his boss the file.

Phoenix’s eyes narrowed. “Hrm. Looks a bit _too_ innocent, honestly. I wonder how she survived the destruction… Have we heard back from Ema on that thing you found?” 

“Officially? No.” A hint of a smirk showed through the tiredness etched in Apollo’s face. “Unofficially, I got a message from Klavier.” Yet another file was produced- this one from a locked drawer in the desk. “We’re not supposed to have this for another eight hours, technically speaking. Having friends on the other side really helps.”

“Yes it does…” Phoenix mused as he looked over the file. “Well now. This is interesting.” 

Apollo nodded. “A miniature knockout device. It sprays… I can’t pronounce the name of the actual gas, but it produces a puff of an airborne toxin that will knock you out cold for a while.”

“This seems like an inefficient way to deliver it, though,” Phoenix said. “According to Ema, there’s not enough force in the pump to get the gas very far, and it’s triggered by… loud noise? So to get knocked out, you’d have to pretty much…”

“Hold it up in your face and yell at it, yeah,” Apollo finished, looking very deflated. His spikes drooped miserably. “Athena already got the ribbing in, sir.”

Phoenix couldn’t suppress a grin. “I knew I hired her for a reason. Anyway, are these things used by our clients at all?”

“Er… no. All their methods lean more heavily toward the lethal.”

The grin broadened. “So there was a weapon there that _didn’t_ belong to our clients? That’s something we can use.”

“Well, on the other hand…” Apollo’s tone brought Phoenix’s enthusiasm down a few notches. “The sapper that Athena found? That’s most definitely the kind that one of our clients uses. Standard Mann Co. issue incredibly-inefficient-incredibly-cheap electronics-destroying machine.” He rubbed his eyes. “Athena and I went down to the detention center to confirm it—boss, that Spy is _weird._ I get headaches talking to him, he’s got tells and counter-tells and tics to cover up the misdirection… and Athena looked like she was caught between embarrassed and intrigued the whole time. I don’t even want to know what she heard.”

There was a _snap_ as the door to the waiting room was hastily shut. Phoenix turned to see Athena with her back against the door, eyes wide. Widget had turned a bright pink. “That bad?” Apollo asked.

“She’s…” Athena gaped, struggling to find the right words. 

“Breathe, Athena,” Phoenix said, eyebrow raising a tad. “I know she’s intimidating, but you’ve faced worse.”

“Er… _Ja. Sehr gut._ ” Drawing in a breath, Athena started pacing around the office, stepping over and around the paperwork piled on the floor. “She’s not lying about being married to the soldier, I can tell you that much. Or, at least, she doesn’t think she is. But… jeez, I could write essays on any one of these people! Zhanna alone is like two scholarly papers on coping mechanisms and violent tendencies! She’s the Russian guy’s sister, by the way.” 

“Oh goody,” Apollo sighed, face in hand. “We get to add family issues to the stack.”

“Yeah!” Athena continued unabated, her pacing picking up speed. “It’s fascinating; I can barely separate the delusions from the improbable truths. Apparently she and her sisters wrestle _bears_ …”

Phoenix cleared his throat loudly. “This is all very nice and all, but did she say anything _useful?_ Do the mercs have any enemies, anyone with a motive to frame them?”

“Oh. Right. Um, well, she admitted to a couple felonies…”

“Not helpful.”

“None of them were in this country, don’t worry. Oh, she did say that mercs are in some kind of war with, um… robots.”

“…Robots.” It was Phoenix’s turn to sigh. “Any idea whether that one’s delusion or not?”

“I think that one was the truth. But if we want to confirm…”

“Yeah. The detention center doesn’t close for another two hours, right? Let’s see if we can get our expert down there.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Naw, see, you load up different for the metal-heads.” There was a folksy twang in the engineer’s voice that seemed tailored to set people at ease. Athena leaned forward, wanting to catch as much of the conversation as possible.

“Right, right…” Athena had rarely seen Aura so happy. “Nanite buckshot? Or do you just go low-tech and give it a bit of a charge?”

“Nanites? Now there’s a thought. But no, this here gear is made by the lowest bidder. ‘S not exactly a fertile field for all the fancy toys.”

Aura shot a pointed glance at the robotic fist that the mercenary was wearing. “You seem to be doing alright…”

“Oh, Bess here?” The engineer flexed the robo-hand fondly. “She’s a homebrew, perfect combination of punchin’ power and robustification for survivin’ those up-close encounters.”

Athena watched the back-and-forth between the two with interest- both seemed incredibly happy to have someone to geek out with. The mercenary (the files claimed his name was Dell Conagher, but who knew how many false identities these people had) was very interested in what Aura called “robo-shock therapy” and Aura, in turn, couldn’t get enough of the turret designs he had laid out. She called them “a miracle of modular expanding battlefield technology” or something. 

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” an accented voice said in her ear. She jumped, swiveling to face the doctor (Medic, she corrected herself, he’d said he was the team’s Medic), who had somehow snuck up beside her. “Herr Engineer in his natural habitat.” 

“Er- yeah,” Athena stammered out. “I, uh, think it’s kinda cute.” 

The tall German chuckled. “You vant to know about our robotic adversary, I take it? Your friend vill likely learn many things in ze course of her discussion, but Herr Engineer… _er redet wie ein Wasserfall._ He rambles, _ja?_ Und I think you may want zis information a tad more expediently.”

Athena flashed him a smile just as bright as his own. “ _Danke, das wär' echt hilfreich!_ ” The Medic’s eyebrows shot up at the sound of his native tongue; she could practically hear him relax. “I studied in Germany for a while,” she said by way of explanation. “But it’s been a while, so I’d prefer English.” She glanced over her shoulder at Aura. “We thought she’d be the best one to get the salient points about your current contract. I probably should have told her to get _only_ the salient points.” **She’s a huge nerd!**

“I heard that!” the roboticist called. Athena winced. **And dangerous!** “Much better!” Aura said, sounding amused as she turned back to her conversation. 

“Of course,” the Medic said, a glint of amusement in his eye as he adjusted one of his surgical gloves. His hands had to be absolutely sweltering in those. “So, ze robots- ve vere hired to defend several key locations, in between fighting zat ozzer team. Ze robots come at us in waves, ve blow zem up und get paid.”

“Huh,” said Athena. “So they’re not all that smart?” 

The Medic scoffed. “ _Dummköpfe._ Zey are mass-produced trash, for ze most part. It vould appear our enemy has some respect for us, however- zere are nine models, based on ze nine of us.”

There was a brief exclamation from the new lab partners. Athena glanced over to see that they had dismantled Aura’s laser, a pen, and one of the room’s lights and were now both hunched over a mess of electronic bits. Aura appeared to have produced a soldering gun from the depths of her lab coat. **I’m gonna have to deal with that,** said Widget. “Not right now, though,” Athena finished. She turned back to the Medic, who was regarding his teammate with a sort of knowing exasperation. 

“I can’t really blame him,” he said, chuckling a bit. “Ve are all vorkaholics to some extent. I vould be stopping to inspect disembodied intestines all ze time on ze battlefield vere it not for ze need to keep everyvun else alive!” He was laughing in earnest now. 

“Heh… yeah… organs.” Athena’s smile was somewhat more strained than it had been a moment ago. She clenched a hand around Widget before it could say anything that would insult her client. “I imagine that this whole… incident produced quite a bit of carnage.”

The Medic immediately sobered, and Athena felt a minor spark of panic as she wondered what she’d said. “Zey did not even allow me to do ze autopsies,” he groused. “If ve are going to be accused of a crime, we should at least be allowed to reap ze benefits, _ja_?” 

“Um… that’s not really how the law works…”

He grumbled something about confiscated hats. “Vell, to avoid ze ozzer… side effects of a rampage ve did not participate in, ve vill need your help. Vhat else can I tell you?”

Athena considered. “So these robots can do anything you guys can do? That’s… crazy.”

He nodded. “Less effectively, of course, but zey have our tools. Ze more recent generations have been smarter, if more limited in number.”

“Trade-off between quality and quantity!” Aura called, making them both jump. Athena glanced back at the roboticist- she and the Engineer were sketching designs for what looked like a combat-ready spaceship, but apparently that hadn’t stopped her from listening in. “Always happens for production models!” She turned back to her design partner. “If we equip the ship with an AI, it can make the combat decisions…”

The Texan shook his head. “I tried giving my turrets real AI once. Darn things started telling me they didn’t hate me. Unsettling as hell. Don’t wanna know what one would do with a whole spaceship o’ guns.”

As the two of them bickered, Athena turned back to her other client. “Right, well, hopefully they won’t kick off a robot apocalypse. Anything else useful you can tell me?”

The man considered, looking startlingly like Phoenix for a moment as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Vell, zey run on money. I haff alvays thought zat vas odd- although I do not know if zat is useful so much as simply interesting.”

“Money? Like, actual cash?” He wasn’t lying, not that Athena could hear. He seemed just as confused as she was, though. 

“ _Ja._ Ve are paid by ze robot destroyed in zat ve pick up ze bills zey leave behind.”

“Wait, WHAT?” Aura yelled, abandoning her plans to come talk to them directly. “What kind of fuel source is that? How much do you pick up off a given robot?”

Athena watched as the two of them did some rapid-fire data exchange and Aura scribbled down a set of equations. A moment later, Aura looked disgustedly at the bottom figure on her notepad. “Whoever’s behind this whole thing must be stupidly rich or richly stupid.”

“If they’ve invested this much in this war, then that’s a potential motive to have you guys put away...” Athena mused. “Any idea who it is?”

“His name is Gray Mann,” a gravelly voice said right by her ear, making her jump. For being roughly the size of a bear, the Russian mercenary was surprisingly stealthy. “Owner of Gray Gravel Co.” 

Aura tapped a pen against her chin pensively. “I’ve never heard of that company on the robotics circuit. I guess when you make robots exclusively to wage a private war, you don’t want to broadcast it…”

“Back up a second- what does a gravel company even make?” Athena asked. “There can’t be that much money in selling gravel.”

“From what comrade Spy has said,” the Heavy said, “Mann makes his money through weapons research and control of illegal eagle-fighting circuit.” 

“That’s a thing?” Athena cocked her head in confusion. The large man shrugged. “Okay, sure, we’ll go with that. Well, now we at least have a suspect.” **But no way to tie him to the crime,** Widget put in. 

“I would think not,” said the air next to Aura. She cursed as she spun around, bringing what looked like a much-upgraded stun gun to bear. The Spy de-cloaked, hands in the air and a faint smile on his lips. “Gray Mann is most careful. Perhaps not the most subtle, but careful. I very much doubt we will find any direct links from the crime scene.” 

“Okay then. We can just focus on not getting you guys _instantly_ convicted.” She glanced around. “Wow, I’m attracting mercenaries like Prosecutor Gavin attracts fangirls. Er, where did Apollo get off to?”

“The one in the red vest?” Leaning on the far wall, picking his nails with a knife that would have been comically oversized were it not so very sharp, was the team’s Sniper. “’E’s entertaining the kid. We figured you lot would actually want to get somethin’ done when you called.”

The clock picked that moment to chime, prompting the police guards to come and usher them out of the visiting area. Aura and the Engineer exchanged a few more notes as she and Athena were led out.

They found Apollo in the lobby, looking pale and even more exhausted than he had been when they arrived. “Finally,” he muttered, falling into step beside them. 

One did not need Athena’s hearing to pick out the tension in that voice- Apollo could really pack a lot into three syllables. Aura looked sideways at him. “What’s got your goat, kid?”

The dark circles under Apollo’s eyes deepened as he let out a long breath. “How do I put this… do you think it’s possible to defend one of our clients a little less than the others?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Yuugami for the help with the German in this chapter. Rough translations for the curious:
> 
>  _er redet wie ein Wasserfall_ = he talks like a waterfall  
>  _Danke, das wär' echt hilfreich!_ = Thanks, that'd be really helpful!  
>  _Dummköpfe_ = idiots, and should be familiar to any TF2 vet :D
> 
> Reviews are love!


	5. Chapter 5

Of all the feelings this courtroom had inspired over the years, Phoenix couldn’t really remember “claustrophobia” being one of them. Then again, he was pretty sure that having nine people crammed into the defendant’s box was a new record, and the place was absolutely packed to the gills with interested onlookers eager to see the perpetrators of the Market Massacre with their own eyes. _As well as whatever laughable defense their obviously insane attorneys try to mount,_ he thought. 

He didn’t let the nervousness show, though. He was supposed to be some kind of professional, after all. 

**CLACK**

Silence settled slowly over the courtroom at the sound of the gavel. The Judge, looking more than a little concerned at the number of people, reporters, and mercenaries stuffed into his domain, cleared his throat. “Well then. This trial of the employees of Reliable Excavations and Demolitions is now underway. Would the prosecution like to give their opening statement?”

The whole of the room turned its attention to Prosecutor Simon Blackquill, who seemed to be scowling even more than usual. Phoenix frowned to himself. _I wonder what he’s so worried about. He should have an open-and-shut case here._

Blackquill grunted. “I intend to show that these men-“ he gestured to the overflowing defendant’s box- “are guilty of terrorism and the murder of eighteen civilians. The evidence is overwhelming and decisive.”

Beside him, Phoenix felt Apollo fidget. The younger attorney wanted to get right to the objection-ing, he could tell, but he’d told both of his underlings to hold off until they were at least cross-examining the first witness. 

Athena nudged him. “I’m getting a lot of noise here, boss. Simon’s… conflicted in some way. It’s like he doesn’t want to be on this case.”

“Well now.” Phoenix’s eyebrow quirked upward. “That’s interesting. If you could talk to him later and find out more…”

She nodded. “Assuming we get through today, that is.”

“Have a little confidence.” Blackquill was in the process of calling Ema to the stand. “We’ve got this.” 

Apollo’s sigh was quiet, but clear enough. “If you have to say you’ve got something, you know you’re screwed.”

Phoenix shushed him. Blackquill was getting to the point with Ema. “So,” he asked, “having compiled all of the statements and depositions, what picture can you give us of the crime?”

There was a flurry of paper as Ema riffled through her notebook. “I had a summary ready somewhere… here we go.” She took a deep breath. “The defendants were observed entering the supermarket around seven on the day of the crime. About twenty minutes afterward, the sounds of explosions, gunfire, and general mayhem were heard inside. The police were summoned, but by the time they arrived the incident had concluded… ah, hell. The description of the scene’s a little long, do you mind if I…” 

Blackquill nodded. “An overview will suffice. We do not need the grisly details.”

“Thanks.” Ema shoved the notebook into her bag and pointed at the mercs. “The cops showed up, found everyone inside except those guys and one woman dead, and the defendants claimed not to know what had happened as they brandished the weapons that, as confirmed later by ballistics, blasted the ever-loving crap out of that store and everyone in it.”

The judge blanched a bit. “Well, that’s certainly an audacious claim.”

“Yuuuuup,” Ema said, leaning on the witness booth. “As you might imagine, they were sedated and arrested.” 

“I see…” The judge looked warily at the professional killers. “Well, hopefully they’ll be put away promptly… for possession of unlicensed weaponry, if nothing else.” 

“OBJECTION!” Athena shouted. “These men are all licensed private security and earthmoving technicians currently contracted by the Mann Corporation. They do in fact have permits for those guns!” She paused. “…And rocket launchers, and grenade launchers, and flamethrowers… I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a flamethrower permit, but Mr. Pyro has one.” She jerked her thumb at the gas mask-clad figure playing with a lighter.

“Mmmrph-hrr-mrr!” They waved jauntily at the judge, who did not seem at all comforted by this news. In fact, His Honor looked to be one small nudge away from hiding under his desk.

“That is very much _not_ the point,” Blackquill growled. Athena flashed him a grin in return. “Legality of arms possession notwithstanding, those arms were _used_ to destroy that store and kill eighteen shoppers.”

“OBJECTION!” Phoenix smiled as Apollo beat Athena to the punch. “That may be so, but there is no proof before this court that these men were the ones to do so!” 

Blackquill’s nostrils flared dangerously. “I was _getting_ there-“

Apollo cut him off, pounding the desk. “The defense would like to cross-examine the witness to establish whether any evidence recovered at the scene supports the theory that the defendants were the ones wielding their weapons in the commission of the crime!” His tone was confident, but the look on Apollo’s face was as clear as day. _We are NOT off to a great start if this is what we’re having to prove,_ it said.

Phoenix sighed inwardly. _Well, he’s not wrong. The good news is…_ He looked at Ema, who was squirming a bit on the stand.

“Well…” she said, hesitantly. “All of the security cameras were destroyed in the rampage; analysis suggests that that was quite deliberate. The hard drive where all the video footage was kept was also wiped. So… we don’t know for certain from physical evidence.”

“Ha!” Athena was still grinning. “So it could have been someone else!”

“SILENCE!” Blackquill’s voice was thunderous, annoyance written clearly across his features. “Leaving aside the fact that we have a witness to the crime, the device used to destroy the hard drive was another of the weapons belonging to the defendants.” He thrust one finger toward the Spy. “The one in the mask, to be precise.” 

“I would like this court to note that we have not, in fact, killed everyone here as a means to solve our problems,” the masked killer in question observed drily. 

Blackquill glared at the slim Frenchman. “According to your record, you actually tried that last time you were arrested. Your good behavior is worth about as much as your not guilty plea.”

_Never let the clients talk…_ Phoenix thought. He rapped sharply on the desk, cutting off the Spy’s retort before he could incriminate himself further. “Our clients are _not_ on trial for any previous acts of violence, mayhem, or psychopathy.” There was a fair amount of concerned murmuring from the spectators. _Huh. Sometimes I forget how mercenary_ we _are. At least we’re not as crazy as our clients… at least, I’m pretty sure we aren’t. I wonder how many of them would defend a whale…_

He shook himself; now was not the time. He pounded the desk to re-focus the crowd’s attention. “The same theory applies: someone could have taken our client’s sappers and used them to wipe the hard drive.”

“OBJECTION! Wiping those hard drives was clearly intended to provide these criminals with plausible deniability!” Blackquill seemed to see the hole in his own argument even as he made it, however, and Apollo didn’t miss the sign of weakness.

“OBJECTION! _Or_ it was the true culprits attempting to cover up their involvement!” Apollo’s self-satisfied smirk faded almost immediately into worry as Blackquill’s hand gripped the hilt of his sword. 

The samurai’s voice was tight as he responded. “You have made your point,” he said through gritted teeth. “Shall we move on to the witness who will refute it?”

“…Sure.” Apollo was leaning slightly backwards, his eyes fixed on the upset-looking hawk on the prosecutor’s shoulder.

“Very well. The prosecution calls Faye Daed to the stand…”


	6. Chapter 6

Daed was… well, “twitchy” was the first thing that came to Apollo’s mind. She stood straight-backed at the stand, but her head jerked around at every noise, her arms folded tightly. _I suppose it’s only natural to be nervous after you survive something like that,_ Apollo thought grimly. _Given the aftermath we saw, I’m surprised she’s not in a psychiatric ward right now._

“Your name and occupation, witness.” Blackquill also seemed particularly tense today; Apollo kept catching him squeezing his hands into fists. Hopefully they could find out what was up with that later.

“I’m, ah, that is, my name is Faye Daed. I work at the outlet mall on the west side, I’m sort of a floating temp. I haven’t been in town that long and…” She withered under the prosecutor’s glare. “…And I suppose that’s not relevant. You want to know what happened at the store, right?”

“Specifically with regards to how you escaped unharmed and what you saw of the culprits,” Blackquill said, nodding. “The defense has posited a scenario wherein the defendants were _not_ the ones using the weapons that committed the crime.”

Daed looked at the mercenaries and visibly shuddered. “Could we get on with this, please? I’d rather not be in the same room as them.” 

The judge nodded briskly. “Of course. I’m not so eager to be here myself. Your full testimony, then, please.”

_Hm…_ If Apollo had a goatee, he would have stroked it. _Nothing out of place yet. She’s tense, but not lying about anything._

“Yeah…” Daed took a deep breath, drawing herself up. “Okay, so I was there on the day of the crime. I got into a… discussion with one of the employees about the price of milk, which got a little… heated. The day manager asked me to come to his office to settle things away from the floor. That’s… that’s when it started.” Her eyes lost a bit of their focus as she looked at the floor. “I heard explosions, and yelling, and gunfire… the manager told me to wait there while he went to see what had happened. He left, and…” She shuddered again. “He didn’t make it five steps.”

Daed’s eyes screwed shut as she took another breath. When she looked up again, it was with conviction. “That one,” she said, pointing at the Demoman, “put a grenade right in his gut. I saw it happen, but he didn’t see me. He… he actually high-fived the one in the baseball cap. Then I…” she trailed off. “The next thing I remember is being curled up under the desk, feeling the wall behind me shake with every explosion.” 

Apollo’s brow furrowed. If she was going to lie about anything, this would be it. This was the crucial piece of information that made their case run. And yet… _No tells,_ he thought disbelievingly. _She’s not lying. They actually did it._

_…Shit._

He was defending a group of very guilty mass-murdering mercenaries. This had to be a new low for him—what was he going to do if they actually pulled this off? He’d be guilty of unleashing an incredibly dangerous group of psychopaths back onto the populace. At that moment, nine million dollars seemed a very small price for his soul. 

He re-focused as he heard Blackquill start talking. “…hid under the desk until the incident concluded, yes?”

“Yes,” Daed confirmed. “The police found me there once they arrived.”

_No, no, no! There’s got to be something!_ Apollo snagged the crime scene report and flipped through it, trying desperately to find some piece of contradictory evidence. It all seemed to line up, though: the day manager had indeed been found a few steps outside his office, the victim of a close-range grenade blast. He glanced over at Phoenix and Athena. His boss was looking pensively at the witness, but Athena, like him, was flipping through a file. 

They all looked up as the judge cleared his throat. “Well, I would think that puts a pretty conclusive end to the defense’s theory. The weapons were in fact in the hands of the defendants at the time of the crime.” Phoenix looked like he was getting ready to say something, but surprisingly the judge beat him to it. “Yes, yes, Mr. Wright, you’d like to cross-examine the witness anyway in spite of your theory being sunk.” 

Phoenix actually smiled at that. “You know me too well, Your Honor.” 

“Very well,” the judge said, looking resigned. “Please refrain from wasting the court’s time any more than absolutely necessary.”

“Sure thing, Your Honor!” Athena piped up. “I have the first question: Miss Daed, you saw nobody else in the manager’s office, correct?”

Daed considered. “Not that I remember, no. I was a little in shock at the time.”

Athena grinned. “Well then. If the room only ever contained Miss Daed, then my masked client was never in the room! How, then, was the sapper attached to the computer?” 

“OBJECTION!” Blackquill roared. “Need I remind you that your client can _turn invisible?_ Obviously the witness would not have seen him.”

“OBJECTION!” Athena thrust the file she’d been looking through at him. “My client’s cloaking technology impairs his fine motor control! He could not remain invisible AND attach that sapper!” She slapped the file back on the desk. “I submit that none of our clients were in that office at any time during the incident!” 

There were gasps and whispers from the gallery. _Not bad,_ Apollo thought. _And if it wasn’t the Spy who wiped those hard drives, it only could have been…_ “Faye Daed!” he shouted, his voice audible even over the noise from the crowd. “You are now the person most likely to have planted that sapper!” 

His accusation did nothing to lower the volume. 

As the judge gaveled the room back into order, Apollo surveyed the witness. Daed was surprised, certainly, and… puzzled? _Either she did it and didn’t expect to be accused,_ he thought, _or she didn’t and is wondering how the thing got planted._ She brought one hand up to massage her temple as the room finally quieted. 

Blackquill was the first to speak. “This is far from the most likely scenario,” he said, glaring daggers at Apollo. “The witness has been through significant trauma and-“

“Wait!” Daed had perked up on the stand, eyes wide. 

With great reluctance, Blackquill wrenched his gaze from Apollo and turned to the witness who had cut him off. “…Yes?” 

“I remember something!” Daed was nodding now. “I thought it was just a hallucination, but… it would make sense…”

“If you have additional testimony,” Blackquill said in clipped tones, “please get to it.” 

Daed shook herself. “Sure, sure… just trying to put all this together.” She stood up straight once more. “I remember seeing the one in the mask, just for a second. He was across the room from me, near the computers.” She turned to Blackquill. “I don’t know much about that thing—the sapper? How long would it take to place?” 

The prosecutor raised an eyebrow at Athena. “You seem to have the specifications in front of you, why don’t you tell us?”

Athena glanced worriedly down at the file. She seemed to sag as her eyes traced down the page. “Urgh… well… my client could have feasibly de-cloaked, attached the sapper, and re-cloaked, if that’s what you’re about to ask.” 

“As it happens, I was, but thank you for establishing it for us.” Blackquill’s smirk was a little less self-satisfied than usual, Apollo noted. His reluctance didn’t seem to be affecting his game, though. “The defense is grasping at straws, Your Honor. Let us end this mockery of a trial.” 

_Crap!_ Apollo wracked his brain, trying to put together some kind of objection. _She’s still not lying—I’m not getting any kind of reaction off my bracelet. She genuinely thinks she saw the Spy. So… wait…_

“OBJECTION!” All eyes swiveled to face him as his pointer finger deployed. “If you truly saw my client, how are you still alive?”

There was a stunned silence.

Apollo recognized the look Phoenix was giving him: it was the “I know you’re not crazy, but confirmation is always nice” look. _Okay, I maybe could have phrased that one better._

The judge was the one to finally break the silence. “Um… Mr. Justice? The witness is quite clearly among the living. What, exactly, are you suggesting?” 

_Confidence. Gotta sell this._ “I’m wondering how the witness survived, Your Honor. If we look at the pattern of destruction in the supermarket,” he said, digging through the stack of documents on the desk to find the appropriate diagram, “we can see that the areas that came under heaviest fire were also those where bodies were found.” 

Blackquill frowned. “Where are you going with this, Justice-dono?”

“Whoever carried out this attack was very intent on eliminating witnesses, Prosecutor Blackquill,” Apollo replied. “All of the shoppers seem to have been terminated with extreme prejudice. So if our clients were actually responsible, and one of them was in the room with this witness, _how-_ “ he pointed sharply at Daed- “is she still with us?”

He had clearly succeeded in annoying the good prosecutor, if nothing else. “Objection! Asked and answered: the witness was hidden beneath a desk, your client would not have seen-“

“OBJECTION!” Apollo countered. “Our clients are VERY GOOD at killing people!” He paused as he processed the fact that he’d actually said that. The chorus of affirmation that came from the defendant’s box did not help. _“Be a lawyer,” they said. “It’s a respectable job,” they said._ He plowed ahead; he could always bemoan the state of his pride once they had won and he could get properly drunk. “If that Spy was in that room, he would have noticed a mere civilian, desk or no desk!”

“SILENCE!” Blackquill seemed to have finally reached his breaking point. “This theory, while perhaps within the realm of possibility, has no support. Your evidence is circumstantial at best and you are defending your clients with declarations of _how adept at murder they are._ ” He whirled on the judge. “Your Honor, can we please finish this farce?”

Incredibly, the judge actually seemed to be considering Apollo’s line of reasoning. “I don’t know… these mercenaries _do_ have quite the résumé of very thorough violence.” 

The look of disbelief on Blackquill’s face was priceless. _We finally get the judge on our side for once, and it’s for_ these _people,_ Apollo thought tiredly. 

Phoenix cleared his throat loudly, drawing the court’s attention. “In that case, we have two potentially valid theories before this court,” he said. “Either this witness planted the sapper and is lying about what she saw, or she is more adept at making herself unseen than her appearance would lead us to believe.” He smiled jovially at Blackquill. “We just need a way to figure out which is true.” 

Before the prosecutor could respond, Athena’s hand shot up. “Ooh! I’ve got it!” She leveled a finger at Daed. “PUNCH THAT WITNESS AND SEE IF MONEY COMES OUT!”

Once again, silence descended on the courtroom.

Blackquill worked his jaw as though he was trying to force words past a clenched throat. The judge’s eyebrows were in danger of cresting his magnificent shiny dome. Even Phoenix was looking at his subordinate with concern. 

_Athena, what—_

“MMMH-MMH-MMPH!” the Pyro shouted, leaping to their feet, also pointing at the witness box. “HRRR-MRH-HRY!”

The Engineer’s head whipped around toward Daed; it was hard to tell behind the goggles, but it looked like his eyes had gone wide with shock. “Tarnation, Pyro’s right!” he yelled. “THAT WITNESS IS A SPY!”

Before Apollo could process that statement, before Blackquill could get his lips around the word “objection,” before the crowd even had time to react, Daed _bolted._

The witness took off like a bullet, swerving between bailiffs and lawyers alike as she made for the exit. She was at the door when a hulking frame came out of nowhere, barring her path. 

_A three-hundred-pound Russian man has no right to be that stealthy!_

The Heavy swung one massive fist in a great sweeping upward arc, the blow landing right beneath the witness’ chin. Daed positively _flew_ backward, landing in a heap in the middle of the courtroom. 

For a single, breathless moment, there was nothing but silent anticipation as the room watched and waited. Then, a flicker of movement near the ceiling: onlookers gasped as a single banknote floated gently down to land on the erstwhile witness’ forehead.

Daed’s form seemed to fuzz, as if she was a picture on a TV with bad reception. A cloud of smoke briefly enveloped her, and suddenly the prone figure was not a woman at all. In her place, struggling to its feet, was a dull blue robot in a paper mask. A revolver had appeared in its hand.

Apollo’s mind raced. _A robot. The witness wasn’t human... no wonder I couldn’t see any tells. The mercs might actually be innocent!_

“CLEAR FIRING ZONE!” the Heavy roared from the back of the courtroom. There was a thunderous clamor of clicks and clacks from the defendant’s box as seemingly all of them produced and cocked an array of guns.

“SIMON!” Athena yelled. “The head!”

Apollo didn’t know what she was talking about, but apparently Blackquill did. One moment he was standing behind the prosecutor’s desk, looking alarmed, the next he was crouched on top of the desk, sword halfway out of its sheath. With a leaping lunge, he skidded past the spybot, cleanly slicing off its head. The robotic dome was sent flying into the air and landed with a _clank_ right in front of Phoenix. 

Simon didn’t even have time to turn around before the robot became the center of an absolute hailstorm of bullets. Apollo caught about a second of it before he felt a hand on his shoulder, roughly shoving him under the cover of the desk. 

Phoenix had both himself and Athena in something resembling a headlock. Athena was covering her ears tightly, her teeth gritted in pain. _As loud as this is for us,_ Apollo thought distantly, _it must be unbearable for her._ The barrage of noise lasted for another ten seconds or so before finally tapering off. Slowly, Phoenix released his death grip, allowing Apollo to poke his nose over the desk. 

It was if there had been a small, localized tornado between the two desks. _A tornado made of bullets, money, and hurt feelings,_ Apollo thought, eyes wide. _Ema wasn’t wrong. They’re thorough._

The sound of gratuitous high-fiving drew his attention to the defendants. The Scout shot him a grin, blowing smoke from the barrel of his pistol. _I haven’t seen that much smug on one face since the last time I saw Kristoph._ Apollo frowned, surveying the rest of his clients. The Heavy and Pyro were doing some manner of shotgun-juggling fist bump, the Engineer was doing a jig on the box’s railing… 

“Disgraceful.”

Apollo looked at the prosecutor standing beside him. Blackquill was sheathing his sword, watching the mercenaries with a conflicted expression. His eyes were angry, but…

“Is that a hint of a smile I see?” Apollo asked, experiencing immediate regret as those eyes fixed on him. “Er… I mean, they are kind of entertaining, aren’t they?”

Blackquill stared him down for a few seconds more before sniffing disdainfully. “I would not expect you to understand, Justice-dono.” He glanced at the high seat. “And besides, it seems His Honor is emerging from his desk. I doubt we will accomplish much more today.” With that, he stalked off back to his desk. 

As what remained of the terrified gallery finally started to settle down, the unmistakable **CLACK** of the gavel signaled the return of the judge. “ _Why_ ” he asked, looking quite shaken, “do these people still have _guns?!_ ”

The Medic smiled up at him. “Vell, nobody ever asked for our secondary veapons.” 

“What kind of man has only one gun?” the Heavy asked, sniffing dismissively. 

“Some kinda bloody idiot, that’s who,” muttered the Sniper, polishing the barrel of his submachine gun.

The judge heaved a massive sigh, steadying himself. “Would you please turn over _all_ destructive implements to the court now, then?” 

There was a brief sidebar among the defendants, punctuated by a couple of indecipherable Scottish exclamations. Eventually, the Spy turned to address the judge. “As a token of good faith, we will disarm. However, we would like ze record to show that we did not, in fact, kill anyone unarmed.”

“That’s… appreciated.” The judge eyed the robotic noggin sitting in front of Phoenix. “Well. Given the surprising turn this has taken, I believe we should break for the day. The police will no doubt want to look at that.” 

_We made it?_ Apollo thought disbelievingly. _We made it! And nobody died!_

_…I should really set higher standards for success._


	7. Chapter 7

It wasn’t appropriate to do victory dances in court, but on special occasions Athena couldn’t resist the urge for a discreet victory shimmy. 

“Gloating is unbecoming, Cykes-dono.”

She winced, turning to see Simon watching her from the door of the defendant lobby. _Note to self: practice discreetness of victory shimmy. Maybe Trucy can help with that._ Fortunately, Simon sounded more amused than anything else. “Heh… yeah, I suppose we haven’t actually won yet.” 

“Indeed.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “You wanted to speak?” 

“Yeah.” She glanced over at where her clients were mingling with her co-workers. Phoenix seemed to be debriefing the Spy, Medic, and Heavy while the other six mercenaries had lifted Apollo on their shoulders in celebration and were apparently… serenading him? **Poor guy,** Widget said. **But the Engineer’s not bad on guitar.** “They’ll be fine,” Athena concluded. She turned back to Simon, prodding him in the chest. “You need to tell me what’s up.”

There was a brief moment where he seemed to be considering simply stonewalling her. _Oh no you don’t,_ she thought, ratcheting up the intensity of her glare. _You may be able to pull that stoic samurai act with everyone else, but not me._

His shoulders sagged. “Very well. I know better than to try to get you to give up on something.” He looked over her shoulder, and she followed his gaze to where the team was relaxing. “I… did not particularly want to take this case. Your clients are… not honorable, exactly, but…”

“Friendly?” she supplied. “Oddly amicable? Strangely stable considering their line of work?”

“Noble,” he said. “It’s not something I’d ever thought I’d say of mercenaries, but yes. They are noble warriors.” 

Athena raised one eyebrow as she looked back at him. “…You did read the same set of files I did, right?” 

“Oh, yes. I find the nature of their job abhorrent, their lax attitudes disgraceful, and their results nothing short of awe-inspiring.” He shrugged. “Clearly they make their work work for them, and is there a more noble goal to aspire to?” 

_He respects them. And in the same breath, he can’t stand them._ Athena could hear both emotions ringing in his heart, but layered over top of it was annoyance at his own indecision. “You’re allowed to feel more than one thing at once, you know,” she told him. Maybe this wasn’t the appropriate time to be smirking at him, but she couldn’t seem to stop. 

He huffed at her. Fortunately, she was fluent in Blackquill Huff, and this particular one translated to “you’re right, but I refuse to acknowledge this fact, because to do so would be to show some kind of emotional depth and somebody might see.” 

“Well,” she said, “if you admire them AND want them out of your hair, why not help us find who actually did this?” 

“…This is not a conversation that we should be having,” he said slowly. 

“Then don’t say anything,” she countered. “I’m sure the lab will get back to us with the analysis of that robot head sooner or later, but let me give you a head start: _Gray Mann._ He’s been fighting our clients for a while now, and I will bet you nine million dollars that’s his robot, sent to give false testimony.”

Simon rubbed his chin, processing. Finally, he gave a short nod, and left with a whirl of his coat. Athena smiled after him.

_That guy can never resist a dramatic exit._

~~~~~~~~

Aura had mixed feelings about contract work, especially for the police department. On the one hand, it always meant either something incredibly easy that could be knocked out in an afternoon or something genuinely strange that presented an interesting challenge. On the other hand…

Her department-appointed minder popped another blob of chocolate into her mouth. “So, you hack its mainframe yet?”

Aura frowned at the detective, annoyed. “For someone who insists on wearing a lab coat everywhere, your knowledge of computers leaves a lot to be desired.”

Skye shrugged. “I’m a forensic scientist, not a computer scientist. And our actual computer guy is currently in the doghouse for failing to notice a giant gray box labeled ‘electro-sapper.’ So…”

“You’re here to make sure I know haste is appreciated, yes, yes.” Aura returned her attention to the open robotic skull in front of her. It seemed to still have some semblance of power, judging by the dimly glowing eye bulb. That was good; sudden, traumatic disconnect probably would have led to memory corruption. The fact that there was a backup power source at all in a weapons platform probably meant it was supposed to survive long enough to come back and relate information. 

“The princess was incredibly lucky,” she said absently. “There’s no particular reason to store memory and processing units in the head. But lo and behold, she and Simon managed to save the most important part.” She fiddled with the wires where the thing’s neck used to be, connecting an external power source. “This should be… got it.”

The eyes blazed back to full life, and the damn thing _shouted_ at her. “I’M COMING TO GET YOU!” 

An explosion of swearing filled the room as Aura scrambled away from the workbench, fumbling for her laser. Skye dropped her snackoos in alarm, but she had her gun out and trained on the disembodied head before Aura could even undo the strap on her holster.

“Sooooo…” Aura said slowly once she was certain the head wasn’t going to leap off the table and attack them. “Speech programming: still working. Good. Good.”

Skye shot her a half-second glance, seemingly reluctant to take her eyes off the workbench. “How, in any universe, is this _good?_ That thing sounds downright demonic.”

“That’s probably a feature, not a bug,” Aura said, nodding. “It’s a combat robot, you’d want the intimidation factor. So that’s functioning as intended,” she concluded, gesturing at the gun still pointed right between the head’s eyes. 

It was Skye’s turn to frown as she slowly returned the weapon to its holster. “It’d better not do that again.”

Aura busied herself connecting her laptop to the thing’s brain. “Don’t worry, I should be able to—hello…” A slow smile spread across her face. “Oh. Oh, yes.”

“That look might just be scarier than the robot,” Skye quipped, looking over her shoulder at the screen. “What’s up?”

“I recognize these login prompts. This security protocol is _awful;_ I can crack it with a couple of scripts I wrote back in grad school.”

“I guess that makes sense. You wouldn’t bother securing combat robots that are just going to get blown up anyway.” Skye tapped her chin as she straightened. “Following that train of logic, though, you also wouldn’t put anything important in their heads in case they _did_ get caught.”

“Well obviously there’s not going to be a file called ‘secret plans for world domina…’” Aura trailed off. There on the screen, listed between the “audio_files” and “src” directories, was “Secret Plans For World Domination.txt.”

“What.” Aura said flatly. Skye reappeared over her shoulder, reading.

“Well that’s not suspicious at all,” she snorted, popping a snackoo.

Aura grunted in agreement, calling up a virus scanner. About eighty different flags were listed for the text file in question. “A decoy. Cute. Anyway, let’s see what makes you tick…” 

Aura moved from directory to directory, scrolling through pages upon pages of code. Firmware, drivers for various parts, reactionary scripts… Software may not have been her primary field of interest, but she’d debugged Ponco and Clonco often enough to recognize a pattern when she saw it. “This thing definitely has an AI. It’s laid out differently than the ones we use at the space center, and it’s a lot less robust at its core.”

A series of semi-rhythmic clicks sounded from another workbench. Aura looked up to see the detective rapidly stripping and re-assembling her gun; Skye looked intently focused. She slid the last piece into place and returned it to her holster before looking up. “…Sorry, what?” 

“I said the mercs weren’t kidding at the detention center yesterday: this thing is dumb,” Aura repeated, raising one eyebrow at her minder. “Itchy trigger finger, Detective?”

“I’m a little nervous after the shitshow in court today.” Skye looked troubled. “I saw that thing’s gun, I should’ve…” She shook herself. “Wasn’t expecting it, I guess. Tomorrow I’ll be ready for anything.”

“You do know what they say about lightning striking the same place twice, right?” 

Skye looked at her frankly. “This was already the second time the court has played host to dangerous robots.”

“…Oh. Right.” Aura felt herself blush. She typically tried not to think about that particular incident. “Er, anyway. The core programming here is pretty basic- sneak around, stab stuff, sabotage things. This particular model, though, has been extensively modded- this thing’s a deep cover unit, built to interact with people and seem human.” 

“Are we talking ‘come with me if you want to live’ levels of danger?”

“Not quite. The disguise breaks down quickly if it takes any aggressive action, and it doesn’t have the capacity to carry around much in the way of weaponry. This thing was customized for exactly this mission.” Aura entered a couple more commands into her laptop. “There’s even a subroutine in here called ‘testify.’ Whoever did this, it was very thoroughly planned.”

“So…” Skye leaned back against the bench. “The big question: who sent it?”

“There aren’t copyright statements in any of the code, so we’re not that lucky,” said Aura, “but I’ve yet to meet a roboticist who isn’t _way_ too proud not to put a signature somewhere.” She set the laptop aside, reaching for her tools. “Let’s see if they put it with the brain…”

As she worked, Aura heard the series of clicks signifying that Skye was checking her weapon again. It was actually relaxing, and before she knew it she had the entire chassis disassembled and laid out in pieces in front of her. All that remained of the original structure was the speaker and eyes, which were still connected to the central computational units. 

“Well, this is what we’ve got,” she announced, idly twirling a screwdriver. “I can’t find anything on first inspection, so any signature is either micro-etched or not here at all.” She frowned at the robotic eyes. “Who made you, you hunk of junk?”

“ALL HAIL THE MAKER!” it said, quite unexpectedly. Both women jumped, Skye leveling her pistol at it again. They looked at each other, slowly relaxing.

“I guess we didn’t consider just… asking.” Skye said sheepishly. Aura was already back at her laptop. 

“That’s gotta be it. Whatever caused that response is the signature. If I can just find the relevant code… huh.” 

“You found it?” 

“Yeah. It’s got its own driver- somewhere in this robot’s chassis was hardware dedicated specifically to producing that response. And I thought _I_ had an ego.” Skye let out something midway between a scoff and a snort, but Aura ignored her. “Yep. Gray Mann, that guy the mercs were talking about last night, made this thing. I thought for sure they were crazy liars.”

The detective already had her phone out. “Prosecutor? We’re a go on that subpoena you prepped. I just got confirmation from your sister. Good luck.” 

Aura watched her as she hung up. “Already had the subpoena ready, huh? Let me guess: a tip-off from a certain princess.”

“I’m not at liberty to divulge that information to a civilian contractor,” Skye said as she tucked her phone into her pocket. “Do thank her for us next time you see her, though. No particular reason.”

~~~~~~~~

“Fantastic work today, both of you.” Phoenix positively beamed at his protégés. “You kept it together, found the contradictions, and brought it home. Against a robot, that’s no small feat… Ms. Daed is definitely going in my top ten most hostile witnesses.” 

Athena gave him a thankful grin over the top of the file she was reviewing, but Apollo simply groaned from his place on the couch. “Really? Not even top five?” 

Phoenix chuckled. “We should just be glad the police are bad at disarming people.” 

“That is _not_ something we should—ah, forget it.” Apollo groaned again as he sat up. “I need to get home and get some sleep. Any updates on Mann?” 

“Got a text a few minutes ago. He’s been served.” Athena’s fist pump lacked its usual vigor. 

“You should sleep too, Athena,” Phoenix admonished. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow. That goes for you too, Trucy,” he said, addressing the hunched form in the corner that was busily poring over another of the case files.

“Sure thing, Daddy…” his daughter said absently. 

Phoenix frowned suspiciously. “Trucy… which file is that?”

“Hm?” She perked up. “It’s one of your clients’—the Spy’s. Do you think I could talk to him once you guys win? These descriptions of some of the things he can do shouldn’t be physically possible…”

“You are not, under _any_ circumstances, to ever speak to the Spy,” Phoenix said firmly. “Or any of our current clients, for that matter.”

“But Daddy!” she whined. “I could learn new tricks!” 

“Yes. Yes you could. None of them would be legal.” 

As the various members of the agency dispersed to their homes and rooms, Phoenix yawned, slowly smiling to himself. Robo-witnesses and career sociopaths were nothing compared to raising a precocious magician. 

~~~~~~~~

“Apollo, could you stop pacing? You’re stressing me out.” 

Apollo glanced sheepishly at Athena, coming to a halt. “Er… sorry.” The defendant lobby wasn’t terribly large anyway, and it seemed even smaller with all of the current defendants crammed into it. 

He frowned as he looked at their clients. Previously, they hadn’t been able to shut up for twenty seconds; now even the Scout was quiet. The kid was broodily tossing around a baseball beside the Spy, whose fingers kept twitching as though they itched to close around a knife. The Medic, at least, was making some sort of noise: he appeared to be muttering chemical formulae to himself. _Probably a relaxation exercise of some kind,_ Apollo thought. _Like my vocal exercises._ The Heavy shifted restlessly in his seat, face cloudy. Apollo approached him, he’d seemed a bit more rational than the others.

“What’s eating you guys?” he asked, his voice a little low. Even with all his clients disarmed, the atmosphere suggested it wouldn’t be wise to make any loud noises or sudden movements.

The Heavy peered at him, considering. “Enemy in the building, we have no weapons… not good recipe.”

Apollo’s frown deepened. “Gray Mann is here, sure, but he doesn’t have his robots, right? And he’s super-old; he can’t be that much of a threat.” 

The mercenary muttered something in Russian. “Mann is dangerous… coward, but dangerous.” 

“That robot-making, eagle-murdering, ignoble sack of meat!” The Soldier was standing sharply at attention, but Apollo noticed his knuckles were bone-white. “He’s as un-American as they come!”

Apollo blinked, then blinked again. “Well… yeah, he’s actually British, so of course he’s not American… what’s this about eagles?” 

“Do not worry about the eagles,” the Heavy said, cracking his knuckles. “Worry about what happens if trial does not go Mann’s way.”

Athena looked up from the file she was reviewing. “You think there’ll be trouble?”

The Engineer grunted. “Miss, if you prove that sonovabitch is up to somethin’, he ain’t likely to take it lyin’ down.”

“And if ya don’t manage to prove we’re innocent,” the Sniper added, “we definitely won’t.” 

Apollo could feel the color draining from his face. “You mean—“

The Sniper chuckled. “No worries on your part, mate. Y’all did way better than we expected.” 

“Our employer wanted us to hire professional legal assistance rather than simply escaping,” the Spy added. “We did not think this would last this long.”

“If zis goes badly, rest assured: ve vill vait until an appropriate time to leave.” The Medic's smile was tighter than usual. “Nothink vill get back to you.”

_I’ve never been so glad these lobbies don’t have security cameras._

“A-hem.” Phoenix drew the attention of the entire room. “A little faith would be appreciated. Unwinnable cases with strange turns are something of a specialty of ours.” 

None of the mercenaries seemed to take much comfort in his statement. If anything, their collective expressions grew stormier. The Heavy stood as the clock struck the hour.

“We will see.”


	8. Chapter 8

Between piercing gazes, threatening glares, suspicious side-eyes, and various angry eyes, the courtroom was no stranger to people looking at each other intently. But this… this was on an entirely different level. 

Nine pairs of mercenary eyeballs were locked on the man on the witness stand. The silent hostility pouring from the defendants seemed to put even Taka on edge—the hawk kept nervously rustling his feathers, taking flight at the slightest noise. 

Any normal person would likely have been at least unnerved by such attention, but Gray Mann seemed to actually be looking _down_ at the defendants. 

Phoenix studied this new witness. Mann was short, and looked to be in at least his eighties. Despite his age, his bearing was haughty, his eyes sharp. Attached to the back of his gray suit was a chrome contraption that seemed to be filled with molten gold. _Looks like a medical device. Although, knowing our luck, it’s probably a jetpack that’ll blast him out of here if things get rough._ Phoenix glanced at his stony-faced clients. _And if the mood in here gets any worse, things are going to get really rough, really fast. This might not go well no matter which way the verdict comes down._

“Name and occupation, please,” Blackquill was saying. Phoenix directed his attention to the matter at hand. 

“Gray Mann, owner of Gray Gravel Company and heir to the Mann fortune.” His tones were clipped, as if he barely considered the question worth his time. 

“Do you understand why you have been called to testify before this court?”

“As a matter of fact, no.” There was a flare of annoyance in Mann’s words. “All I know is that you demanded I come down here with virtually no notice whatsoever to tell you what I know about a robot. All I can tell you is that I don’t know anything.”

In an instant, Athena was leaning so far over the desk she was practically bent double. She looked absolutely livid. “That robot pretended to be a witness against our clients yesterday in court! Whoever gave it that mission is a suspect in the murders of eighteen people! Do you watch the news at _all?!_ ”

“Generally? No.” Mann was looking at Athena like she was some sort of insect. “Although I did hear through other channels that these… _people,_ ” he said, pronouncing the word like he was doing it a disservice, “were suspects in a terror case. Good thing, too, they’re dangerous psychopaths.”

Athena looked like she was about to shout something else, but Phoenix caught her by the arm and reeled her in. He glanced at Apollo as he did so.

His older protégé nodded. “Mr. Mann, you claim the defendants are dangerous psychopaths—how are you sure of this, exactly? Do you have some sort of prior relationship with our clients?”

As Mann scoffed out an answer, Phoenix kept a hand on Athena’s elbow. “You okay?” he asked. “That was a little… violent.”

She seemed to be quivering with barely-constrained anger. “He knows something, boss. I can hear it in every word he says; he knows something and thinks we’ll never find it because he’s oh-so-sure he’s smarter than all of us. Cocky, arrogant son of a robotic bitch.”

“Cocky we can use,” Phoenix said. “Calm down. Getting worked up is exactly what leads to poor decisions.” 

“…sure you’re not, say, engaged in a campaign to take over the Mann Company using an army of robots that is opposed solely by our clients?” Apollo was saying.

“Where would you get such a ridiculous notion?” Mann countered. “Perhaps from a group of delusional psychopaths seeking to invent an excuse for their latest homicidal rampage?” 

“Er… give us a second.” Apollo faltered, turning to Phoenix. “He’s a cagey one, all right,” he said, his voice low. “He’s not giving straight answers, so to me it looks like _everything’s_ a lie.”

“Looks like we’re doing this the old-fashioned way, then,” Phoenix said. “Evidence, hunches, and bluffing. Mr. Mann,” he declared, turning to the witness. “The robot’s source code was decompiled and it was discovered that it had hardware and software dedicated to saying ‘All hail the Maker!’ whenever it heard your name. That links you quite conclusively to the phony witness!”

Mann didn’t even have the courtesy to blanch at this revelation. “Tell me, what did the robot look like?” he asked.

Phoenix blinked. “Um… it looked like one of my clients, actually.”

“Fascinating.” Mann was toying with his nails, not even looking at the attorneys. If, then, you’re suggesting that whoever made the robot had an enormous ego, I would certainly suggest you look first at the one whose face it wore.” 

“But that ‘hail’ circuit-“

“Could have been part of a plan to implicate me. Rather ingenious, actually,” Mann said, smiling tautly. “Create a phony witness, have them give testimony just weak enough to be shot down by some oh-so-clever lawyers, then it reveals itself and poof! Suddenly there’s doubt. Make the police work a little bit to find a juicy clue, and a wealthy industrialist gets dragged through the mud.” He sniffed. “All while the police ignore the obvious truth smacking them in the face: that the defendants are _guilty as sin._ ”

“OBJECTION!” Athena yelled. There was fire in her eyes, but she was keeping it in check… for now. “Gray Gravel Co. produces, among other things, weapons platforms! You could have made that robot as part of a mass-produced mercenary force, and modeled it off of our clients because they’ve proven to be effective!” 

Gray Mann heaved a sigh. “Young lady, Gray Gravel does a lot of things: gravel production, energy regulation, and yes, the occasional bit of weapons development. We do _not,_ however, have a robotics division. The court is free to check my books to confirm that.” 

Athena pounded the desk, clearly frustrated. “That doesn’t mean you couldn’t have an off-the-books private robotics lab that you keep secret from everyone else!” 

“Objection.” Blackquill spoke up for the first time since the start of the cross-examination. His arms were tightly folded. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Cykes-dono. The witness is not simply going to admit to felonies.”

Mann looked at the prosecutor as though noticing him for the first time. “Aren’t you supposed to be on my side? You must know these mercenaries do not have the public good at heart.”

Blackquill turned a cold eye on the witness. “Do not presume to know my thoughts,” he growled. 

_Blackquill’s right,_ Phoenix thought. _We’re not going to get anywhere with the direct route, this guy’s too smart for that. We need to come at this from another angle…_

Apollo cleared his throat as if on cue, interrupting Blackquill’s staring contest. “Er, Mr. Mann?”

“Yes, yes, now what?” Mann turned back to the attorneys.

“You said that Gray Gravel does do weapons research—could you expand on that?”

“If you need me to be so very particular for you…”

“Er, yes. That’s kind of our job.”

“ _Fine._ ”

Phoenix smiled a little to himself. _Attaboy, Apollo. And I’ve got a hunch as to where you’re going with this…_ He snagged one of the evidence files as Mann launched into what sounded like a corporate spiel he’d given innumerable times before.

“Gray Gravel develops stable, mass-producible defense systems for use in today’s uncertain conditions.” Mann seemed downright bored. “Our agile development strategy allows for highly customized rapid-production prototyping and refinement in the pursuit of a solution perfect for our customers’ battlefield needs. We take pride in the fact that our products do not, in fact, spontaneously light on fire like some of our competitors’. We likewise take pride in the breadth of our operations in this sector, and are fully capable of producing electronic, conventional, chemical, biological, and covert warfare solutions…”

“HOLD IT!” The force of Apollo’s shout actually got Mann to jump. “You make chemical weapons?” 

There was something in Mann’s expression, just for a moment. _He’s off-balance for once. Have to press that advantage._

“Yes…” Mann said slowly, his usual contempt wavering a bit. “I did just say that. If you need me to repeat myself…”

“Do you know what 3-quinucal… er… 3-quinuclidab…” Apollo frowned. “Er…”

“3-quinuclidinyl benzilate!” finished Athena. “Do you know what it is?”

It was incredibly satisfying to see the unnerved expression on Mann’s face. _He’s seen his misstep,_ Phoenix thought, smirking. _And now he’s trying to decide if he should risk lying._

“…Yes, I do.” Mann said slowly. “I am a scientist, after all, among other things. It would be very bad form to not know about the world’s most popular knockout gas.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself that this was the correct answer.

As Athena made a show of clarifying what the gas did to the court, Phoenix nudged Apollo. “What’ve you got?” 

The other lawyer’s eyes never left Mann. “He flexes his shoulders when he’s tense. Maybe something to do with that thing on his back? We’re on the right track, boss.”

“Mr. Mann!” Athena was saying, brandishing a piece of evidence. “This capsule was found at the scene of the crime.” In her hand was the knockout marble that Apollo had found and subsequently activated. “It’s a short-range chemical weapon loaded with 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, and it’s triggered by loud noises.” She raised an eyebrow at Mann, who was rapidly paling to an even ghastlier shade of gray. “Not exactly a typical ‘battlefield solution,’ huh? This sort of customized tech would probably require an ‘agile development strategy.’”

“I, I, those…” Mann stuttered, shock and anger warring on his face. “I have never seen that device before.”

_clank clank clank clank_

The sweet sound of psyche-locks rattling into place turned Phoenix’s smirk into a full-blown predatory grin. On either side, he could sense Apollo and Athena tensing as they registered the shift. _Finally, something we can use._

“Mr. Mann!” Apollo’s voice was loud enough to make even Blackquill raise an eyebrow. “If you are in fact not familiar with this device, then why are you so tense? Did your company design and produce this off-the-books specifically to frame our clients?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” snarled Mann. “I know nothing about your clients, we’ve established this…”

“Except!” piped up Athena, “If you’re lying about this—which you are, by the way, I can hear it—then you could have been lying about not being on the opposite side of a conflict with my clients.” She slammed both fists on the desk, the fire in her eyes burning bright. “I know that if I was fighting someone, I’d make sure to know everything about them!”

“Er…” Mann seemed genuinely confused. “You can hear _what…_ ”

“And if you _did_ have that kind of intel,” Phoenix bulldozed onward, connecting the dots, “then you’d know where to put knockout capsules in a supermarket, because you’d know your enemy’s favorite foods! What’s more, you’d know the perfect trigger.” Phoenix crossed his arms, still smiling. “Our clients are loud, argumentative people.” 

There was a shout of “AY! I am not argumentative, everyone else is just wrong!” from the witness box. 

“Case in point,” said Apollo, one eye twitching just a bit. “Given that, it’s perfectly reasonable to make shouting the trigger for your knockout devices.”

“And once they were unconscious, you have your own wetwork group come in, take our clients’ weapons, and destroy the store, making sure to take care of all the witnesses except your robotic one!” Phoenix leveled a pointer finger at Mann. “That’s how you managed it!”

The room burst into a clamor at the accusation. Phoenix took no small satisfaction in the stricken look on Mann’s face. He could practically hear Athena and Apollo grinning beside him.

“SILENCE!”

Blackquill’s voice cut through the din, intimidating the onlookers into submission. He eyed the defense with an odd expression. _I guess that train of logic is a little insane,_ Phoenix thought. _But, I mean… it’s plausible. Right?_

“…The prosecution admits to the feasibility of this witness being guilty, given his link to the robot,” Blackquill began. “But the scenario you have proposed is… unlikely, to say the least.” He gestured toward the defendant’s box. “It would take a mind as twisted as _theirs_ to produce such a convoluted, ridiculous plot.” 

“Er… you think so?” Phoenix asked, suddenly feeling a lot less confident about where they stood.

“Allow me to list the improbabilities,” Blackquill said flatly. “First, the capsules are actually in the correct place at the correct time, undisturbed and un-activated by other shoppers. Second, your clients actually are at those locations and holding arguments that trigger the devices, and are sufficiently affected by the gas. Third, nobody sees this ‘other wetwork team’ enter or exit the building.” He seemed thoroughly unimpressed.

“Well, when you put it like that…” Phoenix was starting to sweat. He could see the next question coming before the prosecutor even opened his mouth.

“Do you,” Blackquill growled, “have any evidence to support this claim?”

 _Don’t panic. Well, maybe panic a little bit._ “Well… how else do you explain the presence of that capsule?” he asked. “It’s not one of my clients’ weapons.”

“Your logic is faulty, Mr. Attorney,” said Mann. He seemed to have recovered from his earlier shock, although he still looked furious. “You only found the one device, yes?” 

Phoenix glanced at Apollo, who nodded, grimacing. “That’s correct.”

“So,” Mann said, “your conjecture that there was more than one is just that: conjecture. As the prosecution says: thinking up such a plot would take a mind as twisted as those of your clients. They could have planted it like they planted your false witness. After all, it would be _obvious_ when you’re insane… or desperate.” 

“That’s… well... one second, please.” Phoenix looked desperately at his associates. “Any ideas here?”

Apollo was furiously pinching the bridge of his nose; Phoenix could almost hear him mentally rattling through every piece of evidence in the case. On his other side, Athena was gripping the desk so hard he thought it might break. “We could…” she started, clearly frustrated. “We could get the mercs to testify. Tell us the last thing they remember before being knocked out.” 

“Won’t work,” Apollo grunted, eyes still screwed shut. “If what they say confirms our theory, Mann will just say they’re lying. Then it’s his word against ours and the judge is _not_ likely to side with us. Maybe that banana stand, the one that didn’t get destroyed? Maybe it’s actually covering a secret entrance or something…”

It was Athena’s turn to shake her head. “No, we would’ve noticed it…”

The **CLACK** of the gavel interrupted her. “Does the defense have anything to say?” the judge asked, sounding impatient. “The witness may be a tad shady, but the prosecution is not wrong. Your theory is extremely unlikely, and in the absence of an actually believable possibility I am prepared to pronounce a verdict.”

Phoenix swallowed hard. _Dammit… there’s just no proof!_ “Er… Your Honor…”

His Honor was shaking his head. “Your bluffs have entered the realm of the truly ridiculous, Mr. Wright. I don’t think your luck extends to these defendants.”

“But Your Honor!” Athena nearly shouted, pounding the desk once again. “The witness is clearly hiding something! I can hear it!” 

“Be that as it may,” the judge said sternly, “the likelihood of this man attempting such a scheme is truly miniscule. Your concerns are noted, and the police may launch an investigation into Gray Gravel at their discretion. For now, however, this court finds the defendants…”

The courtroom doors picked that moment to slam open, drawing every eye in the place.

 _One of these days, I’m going to stop jumping at that,_ some part of Phoenix’s brain mused. 

A demure woman stood in the entryway, dressed in purple. She didn’t appear to be at all the kind of person who went around slamming doors for dramatic effect, but she strolled into the courtroom with all the easy authority of a general on a battlefield.

The mercenaries finally broke their silence in a torrent of exclamations. Phoenix managed to make out the name “Miss Pauling” in all the chatter. 

“Apologies for not knocking,” the newcomer said, shushing the mercs with a wave of her hand. “But I have vital evidence for this trial.”

Something that felt like a steel vise closed around Phoenix’s upper arm. He looked over and saw that Athena, in addition to placing his bicep in a death grip, had gone deathly pale. Widget was showing… static? Was that even possible? “Boss,” Athena whispered, “I don’t even know what I’m hearing right now, but it’s _scary._ That woman is dangerous.”

“Who, exactly, are you?” Blackquill asked, peering curiously at the woman in question.

“Call me Pauling. I’m a… facilitator.” 

Phoenix’s eyes went wide as Pauling became the center of a veritable storm of chains and locks. _I didn’t know one person could_ have _that many psyche-locks…_ There were easily two dozen surrounding the small woman. _If I didn’t believe Athena before, I do now._

Apollo nudged his other side. “You guys okay there? I’m getting some weird signals from my bracelet, it’s been grabbing my wrist ever since she showed up.”

Phoenix blinked, re-focusing. “I think… I think this Miss Pauling may be the most dangerous person in this room right now. But judging by the witness, she’s on our side.”

Mann did indeed look utterly blindsided. He seemed to be attempting to form words, but the best he could manage was “…You!”

“I act as an intermediary between Reliable Excavation and Demolition and Mann Co.,” Pauling continued briskly.

“She gives us hats!” the Soldier chimed in.

“…and guns, and other supplies, yes.” Pauling added, shooting a slightly annoyed look the Soldier’s way. “I’m also in charge of keeping track of their activities. For, ah… legal reasons.”

“I can imagine how that might be relevant with this particular group,” Blackquill said drily. “That seems a rather demanding job.”

Pauling smiled appreciatively at the prosecutor. “It was a little monumental, true, but some creative thinking cut it down significantly.” She held up a rather fetching red Ascot cap. “This is a Mann Co-branded Gentleman’s Gatsby like the kind confiscated from one of the defendants. It, and all the other cosmetic items procured from Mann Co., are given some after-market alterations before we pass them on to the mercs.”

Apollo was already flipping through the evidence record. “You mean this stuff? A bandolier of bongos… a doll that looks like a blue Spy… one of those fuzzy Russian hats…”

“Precisely,” Pauling said, nodding. “We put cameras in all of them, and I can show you how to access the footage.”

The courtroom exploded into noise at this revelation. Audible through the chatter of the onlookers, however, was a chorus of confused and angry noises from the defendant’s box. From the sound of things, they hadn’t known about these “after-market alterations.”

“Your Honor!” Athena yelled through the din, looking up at the judge. “We need to view the footage from these cameras during the time the crime was committed! This could confirm our theory!”

“Objection!” came a strangled voice from the witness stand. The court started—Gray Mann had almost been forgotten in the excitement. “I—I object! This woman has clearly tampered with evidence!” 

“Who, me?” Pauling asked innocently. “I’m just a pencil-pusher, and all the evidence has been in lockup anyway.”

A rustling of wings came from the prosecutor’s desk, drawing the attention of the court—Taka had touched down on Blackquill’s shoulder, bearing a pirate hat. “Well, I have one of the items in question here. If you would be so kind, Miss Pauling?”

“Sure. Is there a USB connection in here?”

As Pauling talked Blackquill through the process, Phoenix looked back at Mann. His eyes kept darting back and forth between the Pauling and the well-guarded exits. _He must not have known about these cameras. If even the mercs didn’t know, how could he? Let’s just hope they weren’t all face-down in a puddle of soda when the attack happened…_

Blackquill finally succeeded in hooking the hat-cam to the court’s projector system. Several screens descended from the ceiling, allowing all present to watch as Pauling rewound to the time of the incident. 

“Three days ago, seven-twenty… here we are.” All eyes were on the screens as the playback commenced.

 _The camera showed a supermarket aisle overflowing with cookies, crackers, and other easily consumable pre-packaged foods. The Spy and Scout were in the middle of the aisle._

_“I see you are still determined to give yourself heart disease,” the Spy said disdainfully, eyeing the Scout’s cart. “There is more sugar here than I care to consider.”_

_“Ay, I burn a lotta calories, okay? Just ‘cuz you’re slowin’ down doesn’t mean I have to, old man. Where’s the soda?”_

_“Just who do you think you are addressing?”_

_There was an amused snort as the camera passed the two arguing mercenaries. The view wobbled a tad as the hat’s wearer rounded the corner, heading towards the alcoholic beverages._

_“Mmmph-mm-mmr!”_

_“You’re being bloody ridiculous, we’re getting the—actually, ‘ere, let’s just ask a third party. Oy, Demo, mate!”_

_The view pivoted as the cameraman turned down the aisle they were passing, bringing the Sniper and Pyro into view._

_“Ach, wha’s tha problem?” came the Demoman’s voice from directly below the camera._

_“This idiot,“ the Sniper jerked a thumb at the Pyro, “claims we should be gettin’ the extra-crispy jerky. That stuff’ll just crumble if ya leave it past a week, we want the chewy kind.” He brandished what seemed to be his preferred jerky._

_“MMMR-MMRPH-MRR!” the Pyro said, gesturing emphatically at his own bag of meaty snacks._

_“Oh, come off it!” the Sniper snarled. “You know bloody well what happens when any of us eat that stuff!”_

_“MMMPH-MMMMR!”_

_“Will ya both just SHUT IT!” yelled the Demoman._

_**fsssssh** _

_A cloud of green gas hissed out from the jerky rack, causing all three mercenaries to cough. The camera wobbled further, catching the other two mercs as they slumped to the floor before finally tumbling down to rest on the ground itself._

_The hat rolled a short distance, thankfully coming to rest with the camera right side up. The low-angle shot was partially obscured by an unconscious Scotsman, but otherwise provided a view right down the aisle. The Demoman’s grenade launcher had slipped out of its holster and sat in the middle of the aisle._

_A few seconds later, there was a low rumble and accompanying shake of the camera. Not a second after that, the screams started._

_The unmistakable sounds of violence came closer and closer: screams that were suddenly cut off, running feet, explosions and the staccato notes of gunfire. Under it all was a consistent clanking that didn’t sound like any particular weapon._

_The source was revealed a moment later as a figure clomped into view around the corner of the aisle, then charged toward the prone mercenaries. It was, unmistakably, a giant white-and-silver robot, although it didn’t look like any of the members of RED team. The low-angle shot made it hard to determine what, exactly, the robot was supposed to be, but it scooped up the grenade launcher and started firing over the camera. It paused briefly, one massive robotic foot gently nudging the sleeping Demoman out of the way. Then the mechanical terror was off again, trampling down the aisle and sending the camera spinning so that all it saw was the bottom of a shelf.  
_

Blackquill stopped the playback. The court was eerily silent as the screens retracted. Slowly, all eyes turned to Gray Mann, looking equally livid and scared on the stand.

“Mr. Mann,” Blackquill said in a low, dangerous voice. “This confirms the defense’s theory. The defendants were not in possession of their weapons at the time of the crime—and the only robots we have seen so far have been conclusively linked to you. Do you have any response to this?”

“I… I…“ Mann stuttered. He looked from Blackquill, to Phoenix, to the judge, to Pauling’s satisfied smirk. Finally, his eyes turned to the nine very angry defendants pointedly cracking their knuckles in his general direction. He took a deep breath, and seemed to calm somewhat. “Oh, screw it. EVERYONE DIES!”

The ceiling of the courtroom exploded inwards.


	9. Chapter 9

For a few heartbeats, everything was dust, noise, and confusion. Finally, most of the masonry finished falling and things cleared enough for Athena to pick out a number of mammoth forms straightening in the middle of the room. As the ringing in her ears faded, she made out what was unmistakably the same clanking they had heard in the hat-cam video. She shook her head, trying to make sense of things. _Why am I on the floor?_

She looked over at Phoenix and Apollo to make sure they were all right. Neither seemed to have been injured, but both were in a similar position—apparently the forceful removal of the ceiling had blown everyone back against the wall. Phoenix was struggling to his feet, a look of mingled shock and disbelief on his face. “Gorillas,” he said, awed. “Robot gorillas.”

“Actually, Mr. Wright,” came the gleeful, gloating voice of Gray Mann as he stepped up beside one of the silver robots, “they’re yeti. I modeled them off of the last animal to fight that buffoon Saxton Hale to a standstill. One last fun fact before you die. Robo-yeti! No survivors!” 

Time seemed to slow around Athena, her adrenaline-filled brain blotting out the screams from the gallery and the panic starting to build in her gut. _Okay. I count… eight robo-yeti, one of which is bearing down on us. I don’t think therapy is going to work that well on them; we’ve gotta get out of here._ The exits were already becoming jam-packed with fleeing civilians, however, and the other robots were moving to block routes of egress. _Damn, they’re quick. That’s almost unfair… Why the hell don’t they give the bailiffs guns?!_

As she frantically tried to think of an exit that didn’t take them straight past giant robotic death engines, one last yeti came crashing in from the roof… right on top of the defendant’s box. There were brief yells from the mercs right before impact, and then… nothing. Just an impenetrable cloud of dust and that awful clockwork clamor.

_No! Without them, there’s nobody here who can take these things on… except…_

She felt a surge of hope as she heard the faint but unmistakable sound of a katana leaving its sheath. A moment later, the robo-yeti in front of them sprouted a sword point from its chest. 

The thing growled, or at least made a displeased rumbling approximating a growl, and whirled on Simon… only to find that he had already withdrawn his sword and the robot’s turn had put its arm in convenient slicing range. It staggered, off-balance, as it looked at the robotic appendage on the floor. Simon took advantage of its confusion to cut off one of its legs, sending it toppling to the ground.

“Cykes-dono! Move!” he barked as several other robots turned to face him. 

Athena felt a hand tugging on her arm, but she stayed rooted to the spot. “You can’t take all those things alone!” she yelled as yet another robot disengaged from the act of tossing aside onlookers to tromp towards where Simon was fending off three yeti at once. _He’s going to get himself killed! I won’t let him go out like this, I can’t, not after—_

A baseball streaked out of the cloud of dust and smoke that had enveloped the defendant’s box, smacking one of the yeti in the head with a resounding _clong!_

“He’s not alone, miss small yellow lawyer!” The Soldier’s gravely voice carried strongly through the smoke.

The robots, the fleeing crowd, and the attorneys all froze as nine mercenaries emerged from the smoke, smudged with oil and bruises but still very much alive. The Scout had replaced his baseball with the head of the robo-yeti that had fallen on them, and the Heavy seemed to be pulling on improvised gauntlets made from the robot’s metal fists. 

The Medic smoothed back his disheveled hair. “ _Danke_ for ze chance to fight nine-on-one, Herr Mann. I had forgotten how good it felt to haff a numerical advantage.” His coat was battered and his gloves torn, but the grin he flashed Mann was as brilliant as ever.

“Well,” Mann said tautly from his place atop one of his robots, “don’t get used to it.” Athena flinched—he was keeping a lid on it, but white-hot rage echoed in every syllable. “Robo-yeti! Overwhelm and destroy!”

There was a veritable stampede as the robots rushed the mercs. Athena dived out of the way as a passing robot obliterated the defense’s desk with a casual swipe of one massive hand. She frantically scanned the area for Simon, finally spotting him sprawled against the wall behind the similarly smashed prosecutor’s desk. Blood was running down his face.

 _No no no. No no nononono…_

One of his hands twitched, groping for the sword that had landed a few feet to his side. 

_Oh thank god._ Athena was up and moving before she could stop herself, blocking out the sounds of violence all around her and training her hearing on the shaky sound of Simon’s breathing. She dropped as she ran, skidding to a stop beside him.

“Cykes-dono…” he grunted, trying to blink blood out of his eyes. “What…”

“Don’t move,” she said, hurriedly checking over his head. _Bit of a bump, nothing too serious, bleeding a lot but that’s normal… I think._ She looked over the rest of him while pushing on the head wound. Her eyes stopped when she got to his right arm. _Oh… shit._

Simon’s arm was twisted at an unnatural angle just above the wrist. “Okay, I think your arm is broken. No blood, but don’t try to move it.”

He cursed, shifting restlessly. “Hadn’t… grr… noticed. I have to… stop…”

“The mercs are handling it,” Athena said, pushing him down. There were screams behind her, and a string of curses in French. “I hope. You stay, you’ve done your part.”

Simon grunted. In Blackquill, that roughly translated to “you’re right, but my instinct to go do something noble and stupid is extremely strong and if I weren’t in quite so much pain, it might override your logic.”

“Athena! Head down!” Apollo shouted from the ruins of the gallery.

She ducked just in time to avoid a ballistic Scotsman. The Demoman crashed into the wall in a shower of splinters and indecipherable curses. Amazingly, he struggled to his feet as Athena and Simon watched, looking dazed but pissed as hell. _Damn. That bomb disposal suit is built tough… well, I guess it totally should be._

“Ach, I dinnae like havin’ to fight wi’out a decent…” The Demoman’s eye fixed on the sword a few feet from where Simon lay. “Aye,” he said, addressing the prone prosecutor, “ye wouldn’t be mindin’ if I borrowed this, wouldja?”

Simon bristled. “I most certainly—“

“Thanks, mate!” the Demoman yelled, scooping up the sword. “Come ‘ere, ye tin cans! FER THE HONOR O’ DEGROOOOOT!” He charged off back into the fray, the katana held in both hands above his head.

Simon’s face was a mask of stunned disbelief. “I… he…”

Athena had rarely heard such a dissonant chorus of emotions: respect for the man’s tenacity, anger at having his sword taken, despair that it was being used as though it were a greatsword, and an exhausted admiration for such a powerful fighting spirit. She patted his shoulder consolingly. “Yeah. Pretty much.” 

~~~~~~~~

“…EVERYONE DIES!”

Mann’s proclamation hadn’t even finished echoing around the room before the ceiling started to rain down. A string of expletives ran through Ema’s head as she dived for what minimal cover the chair in front of her provided. At the same moment, a cloud dust and splinters burst over the gallery, effectively blinding her.

 _Shit, ass, double shit, one thousand shits…_ she thought as she hacked dust out of her lungs. _Those noises didn’t sound like explosions._ She risked a peek out from under the chair. Her vision was blurry, but she made out the giant robots landing in the center of the room. _Oh…_ Her expansive vocabulary failed her. 

“Robo-yeti!” Mann barked. “No survivors!”

As the robots clanked into motion, Ema was very nearly trampled by a crowd of people trying to flee for the door. With an effort, she pushed upward in the direction the crowd was moving, using their momentum to get to her feet. Using shoves, jostles, and a couple of judicious elbows, she made her way to the side of the courtroom, almost tripping over the last chair in a row. She finally got her back against the wall, working her gun out of its holster. Her hands moved to grip it automatically as she scanned the room, trying to assess the situation. She counted eight robots: Prosecutor Blackquill was frantically fending off three at once, two were guarding Mann, one was in pieces on the floor, and the others were attacking the civilians. _I can occupy at least one more of them,_ she thought, focusing on the yeti closest to her. _If this crowd would just give me a clear shot…_

The clang of metal on metal drew her attention and actually stilled the herd of noncombatants. There was silence as the defendants appeared from the smoke, but as they were charged by a horde of determined machines, the crowd began to surge out again. Without the robots harassing them, more actually managed to slip through the doors, but they were their own worst enemy—their mass attempt to escape clogged the exit with bodies, limiting the flow of people outwards to a mere trickle. 

Ema cursed to herself as she pushed forward along the wall. _Seven robots left, two guarding Mann, the other five dealing with the mercs… but if I can just get a shot off on their boss, I should be able to finish this fast…_

The crowd cleared the closer she got to the fracas, allowing her to pick up speed. The danger-averse instincts drilled into her by her sister yelled at her that this was insane, that she was going to get herself killed, that these robots were probably made too tough for her handgun, but she ground them down. Finally drawing a clean line between herself and her target, she crouched and flicked the safety off on her pistol. _Focus,_ she chided herself as she noticed her white-knuckle grip. _You get one shot before he notices you and you have to deal with giant deathbots._ There wasn’t time for her usual routine of breathing and relaxing; she took one deep breath, let it out halfway, and squeezed the trigger. 

Her shot caught Mann right below the ribs, sending him toppling backwards from his perch atop his robot with a shout. _Ho… holy shit. I got him! Yes! Yesyesyesyesyes!_ “GOTCHA!” she shouted, pumping one fist in the air. “Mann is down! The robots’ boss is down!”

Seven pairs of robotic eyes instantly zeroed in on her and the smoking gun in her hand.

_Oh… two thousand shits._

Another _CLANG_ drew the attention of most of the yeti back to the mercenaries, where the Heavy had taken advantage of the distraction to land a punch powerful enough to send one of them sprawling. The fight resumed, to Ema’s dismay.

From the spot where Mann had fallen, there was a strange _zzzzzzap-splorch_ noise, and Mann himself staggered out from behind his metal guardians. _Wha... how? That was a gut shot, he should be…_

“You,” Mann growled at her, “have just cost me more money than you could possibly imagine.” With a curt gesture, he sent one of his guards barreling towards her. 

Panic welled up in her gut, but instincts built through hours of relentless drills took over. She snapped the barrel of the gun over to the lumbering robot and squeezed the trigger over and over in rapid succession. The damn thing tanked every shot, barely flinching even when the bullets dented its metallic cranium. 

Suddenly it was upon her, one giant fist raised to pummel her into oblivion. The yeti filled the entire scope of her vision, and every fiber of her being yelled at her to _move!_ She attempted to throw herself backward, only to remember too late that she had been moving along the wall. The fist descended.

_Well… shit. Sorry, sis, I guess I’m not cut out for this line of work…_

Something connected with her body at high speed—but from the side, not above, and it felt distinctly like it was made of flesh, not metal. She flew sideways, collapsing in a heap with something lying on top of her. Her head cracked painfully against the floor on landing, making her vision swim as she attempted to sit up. _What? I’m…alive?_ Why was she in danger again? Something about… yeti? A blurry form was getting to its feet over her, and it looked distinctly… purple? _That’s… what was her name?_

There was a robotic roar from beyond her field of view. Her mind snapped back to clarity. _Robots. Pauling. Right._ The diminutive clerk must have saved her. That was incredibly brave, for a pencil-pusher. Ema was a bit surprised she hadn’t fled when the robots arrived. But she was still a civilian, which meant she needed to get out of…

Ema blinked. Her vision was clearing, and as she watched Pauling yanked up her skirt to reveal a thigh holster. She had the gun out and firing on the advancing robot within two seconds, dropping into a crouch for a more stable firing position.

Ema’s keen detective senses told her that Pauling was a bit more than an office drone.

She braced herself against the wall, getting groggily to her feet. Pauling glanced at her. “Get moving!” the other woman yelled. “I’ll cover you!” 

The robot actually seemed to be reacting to Pauling’s shots, so Ema didn’t argue. She ran along the aisle towards where the exit had mostly cleared. _Looks like most of the civilians got out. Good._ She noted a number of unconscious or groaning bodies scattered around the gallery, knocked aside by the wild swipes of robo-yeti hands, but there was no time to think about them. She winced as she recognized one of the bodies—the Spy seemed to have been flung all the way into the gallery, his torso twisted and bent unnaturally. _Shit… one less merc fighting on our side. Nothing I can do for him now… How many times did I fire? Better reload._

Her muscles went through the process automatically, giving her brain time to worry about how Pauling was faring. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see the other woman dive out of the way of a double-handed smash, rolling upright and sprinting further away. Ema had her gun trained back on Pauling’s pursuer as soon as she reached the middle of the room, firing in the hope of at least distracting it. 

It certainly noticed, turning towards her and crushing chairs as it stomped over. _Hopefully that gives Pauling time…_ She turned and dashed away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Pauling swiftly reloading. 

With no desire to either be in her new ally’s line of fire or get any closer to the fight happening down on the main floor, Ema darted to one side, running down another aisle back towards Pauling’s side of the room. She heard gunfire clearly over the other sounds of combat: Pauling had opened up again. She pivoted, sighting back in on the robot as it staggered under a withering hail of bullets. Her instincts made her finger twitch on the trigger, but she quelled them—better to save her ammo for a target that might actually care. _Here’s hoping she puts that thing down before she runs out of…_

There was an unmistakable _click_ from Pauling’s direction. The robot was still standing.

 _Good job, Ema. You just HAD to think it…_ Before she knew what she was doing, her feet were carrying her back down the aisle at a sprint, her lab coat flapping behind her. There was no way Pauling had a third clip hidden in that thigh holster, and her own gun wasn’t going to do anything at this range, so…

 _This is stupid, stupid, stupid…_ She launched herself onto the robot’s back, wrapping her off arm around the beast’s neck. Her attack seemed to have confused its robotic brain: it spun, looking for an attacker behind it. Ema’s stomach lurched as she was nearly thrown off and the world spun around her. She squeezed her eyes shut, desperately trying to maintain a grip on her gun. _Blackquill said the spy-bot’s important bits were in the head, let’s hope these things are the same…_

She cracked her eyes open, pushing the gun hard against the robot’s metal temple. Gritting her teeth, she squeezed the trigger. The robot stopped spinning, thankfully, but started to buck and flail wildly. _Just! Die! You! Stupid! Yeti!_ She squeezed the trigger again, and finally something vital seemed to give. The jittery clanking stopped, and the robot collapsed under her.

Ema finally opened her eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath. _Okay. Note to self: let’s not do that again._ She started to rise, only to find that the arm she’d looped around the robot’s neck was somewhat stuck. She cursed as she tugged at it, trying to get her hand past the sharp metal chin. 

A pair of hands appeared from over her shoulder to push the head out of the way. As she got her arm free, Ema looked over to see that the hands belonged to Pauling. “Thanks,” she said, working her shoulder.

“Not a problem,” Pauling said, smiling at her. “That was really impressive, actually. I had no idea the police around here were so intense.” 

Ema checked her ammo, reloading when she noticed she was down to one round. “Heh. Intensely incompetent for the most part. But yeah… our whole justice system is a little intense.” She looked intently at Pauling. “Gotta say, that was a little unexpected… I’m going to have some questions for you after this.”

The smile didn’t even falter. “Fair. I…” She was interrupted by a katana whistling point-first past their heads to lodge in the back wall. 

“Later.” Ema turned back to the main floor. “I’ve got a rogue witness to catch.” 

There was a _wh-click_ from behind her, and she glanced back just in time to see that Pauling’s _other_ thigh holster apparently held a stun baton. “I’ve got your back.”

 _And this is her_ work _uniform?! …Damn. I gotta get one of those._

~~~~~~~~

Apollo did not have a lot of emergency response training, nor was he particularly practiced at dealing with direct conflict that involved anything more deadly than a pen. That, plus his general lack of self-preservation instincts, probably explained why he had attempted to follow Athena to where Blackquill was crumpled on the floor. At least, that’s what he was telling himself. 

One of the robots had intercepted him as he chased Athena, and after a few seconds of panicky dodging, the Scout had pulled the yeti’s attention. The next couple seconds were a blur of red and silver, but Apollo had found himself with Mr. Wright in the center of a circle of mercenaries as they fought tooth and nail against the giant robots. At one point the Demoman was thrown from their ranks, only to come charging back seconds later bearing what was unmistakably Blackquill’s katana.

Even as most of his brain was busy panicking and trying to find a way out that didn’t involve being pulverized into attorney paste, some weirdly calm part of himself had been watching the robots. Their movements were quick, but they only seemed to have a limited number of punches and other attacks. _Makes sense,_ he thought as he watched a yeti wind up a punch it had used three times before. _They’re run by computers, it’s probably easier to have a few defined attacks and pick one based on the situation instead of using an AI. Why is THIS what I’m noticing now? My mind is weird when I’m in mortal danger._

There were gunshots from one side of the room, and the robots were momentarily distracted as Ema yelled something about Mann being down. Apollo snuck a peek through the tangle of limbs—Mann looked perfectly fine, although something had knocked him off of his perch. 

A mammoth silver form filled his vision. Apparently he’d lost focus for an instant too long, and one of the robots had found an opening to get through to him.

 _Well. That’s… not good…_ But before his life had time to flash before his eyes, he recognized the attack the yeti was about to perform: it had brought both hands above its head and was going to bring them down with enough force to turn him into Attorney Pizza. If he dodged forward past the thing…

Apollo was not the most coordinated of people, but he still managed to stumble around his attacker before the fists came down, shaking the floor. _Not dead!_ he thought, promptly proceeding to trip over his own feet and tumble to the floor. An instant later he felt the _whoosh_ of something large and heavy through the air above him. _Holy KARMA that was close. What was that? Probably the haymaker…_ He rolled over, trying to get a glimpse of what was coming next, and kept rolling as he saw the robot prepping the ground pound again. 

He pushed himself to his feet, managing to put a little distance between himself and his assailant. _Of course, now I’m outside my protective circle of clients… great._ The robot kept on him, chaining together a rain of punches that Apollo only just managed to read in time. His scrambling, stumbling dodges weren’t pretty, but they got him out of the way—barely. He could feel the robot getting closer by inches with each blow. Adrenaline was all very well and good, but he wasn’t exactly in shape.

 _Don’t think about getting tired,_ he told himself desperately. _Don’t think about the other robots, or what’s happening to Athena, or Ema, or Phoenix… Focus on the next dodge. Haymaker, dance backwards… rising backhand, duck… right jab, dive right…_

_**CLANK** _

His dive was interrupted by an unexpected and very unwelcome wall of metal. While it had the intended effect of putting him out of the way of his pursuer’s fist, he had somehow managed to dive right into the last robot guarding Mann. He fell back, sitting down hard on the floor. 

The robot whose leg he had just run into looked down at him. Apollo suspected that, had it been able to speak, it would have said something along the lines of _“Rude!”_ The other robot stomped up behind him, boxing him in. 

Mann himself rounded his silver guardian, breathing hard and looking distinctly out of sorts. Apollo noticed that a part of his suit was stained deep red—apparently, Ema had indeed gotten a shot off on him. “I really need to tune up the unarmed protocols on these things,” Mann said, seemingly mostly to himself. “It should not be taking them this long to kill you all.”

“How are you alive?” Apollo blurted out. He may have been about to be broken to bits, but damn if he wasn’t going to have his curiosity satisfied.

“What did you think this thing did?” Mann asked irritably, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the device on his back. “Mortality is for idiots.” 

“That’s… an immortality machine?” _As long as he’s talking, the robots don’t seem to be attacking… how polite of them._ “Huh. I didn’t know that was possible.”

Mann snorted. “I’m sure there are a lot of things you don’t know, and never will.” He turned, waving dismissively to the robots. “Kill him.”

 _Well, there goes that poor excuse for a plan._ From his position, he’d never be able to get out of the way in time…

A screaming yellow blur streaked in from the edge of his vision, heading directly toward Mann. _Athena?! What are you…_

The robots stopped in mid-swing, instantly springing between their master and the new threat. Apollo caught Athena’s smile as she swerved just in time to avoid being batted aside. “Don’t just sit there, MOVE!” she yelled at him. 

_Right!_ He turned and scrambled to his feet, away from the robots. _Now I need to return the favor; there’s no way she can evade both of those things for long._ Athena was certainly in better shape than he was, but she didn’t have his eyes. There was nothing for it. He charged back towards where the robots were hounding her, scooping up a broken length of wood on the way. He glanced at it—one end was decently sharp, but that wouldn’t do much against armor plating. The best he could hope for was a decent club. _I can’t believe I’m about to do this…_

“HEY, METAL-HEAD!” he roared at the top of his lungs as he leapt at one of the robots. He brought the club down hard on the thing’s shoulder, which simply bounced off with a _thonk._

“Error,” it said, in a voice that sounded much more computerized than its previous roars. “Audio input overload. Please recalibrate.”

Apollo blinked in surprise. His blow hadn’t done anything… had he actually managed to _deafen_ it? Were his Chords Of Steel really that strong?

He hesitated in surprise for a moment too long. The yeti turned, idly whipping one hand around as it did so, catching him in a backhand. Apollo went positively flying across the floor, ending up in a crumpled heap by the defendant’s box.

 _Ow…_ Everything hurt. His left side felt like one mass of pain, his back was resting painfully hard against some very uncomfortable debris, and his head rang with what felt like siren screeches made of nails. _That… that was a bad idea._ These thoughts were confirmed as he glanced back towards the robot, only to see that it was coming after him to finish him off.

“Hm. Not terrible… but your form needs work,” a distinctly French-sounding voice said from the air next to him. “Allow me to demonstrate, no?” His hunk of wood vanished from his hand.

The robot arrived, towering over him. It didn’t bother to roar, simply raising its fist for the killing blow.

There was a harsh electronic crackle from behind the monstrosity, and the Spy appeared perched on its back. He flourished the length of wood before stabbing it deep into a joint between two armor plates. The yeti stopped, shook, and teetered for a moment before collapsing. One massive arm landed across Apollo’s legs. _Ow… again…_

The Spy stepped casually down from the prone robot’s back, twirling a pocket watch. “Well, Mr. Justice,” he said. “I must thank you for taking its ears.” The corners of his mouth twitched into a small smile as he lit a cigarette. 

Apollo could only groan in response. 

“Justice! Don’t you DARE die!” The roar that came from behind him could only belong to one grumpy detective. Ema skidded to a stop beside him, frustration and stress etched across her face. Pauling pulled up next to her, exchanging a quick nod with the Spy. 

“Hey, Ema…” he managed. 

“Don’t!” she snapped, looking over his battered body. “I’ve got like two friends, I’m not losing one of them because they couldn’t resist the urge to quip! Shit, you need medical attention…”

“That we can do,” Pauling said. “MEDIC!”

Barely two seconds later, a German doctor was bending over him, cataloguing his injuries. “Slight scrapes, superficial, legs smashed, vorse news but no compound fractures at first glance, blunt force trauma to ze back and left side, somevhat… more concerning.” He looked up at Pauling and Ema. “Ze patient should not be moved at present. Ve vill look after him, go.”

Pauling nodded, tugging on Ema’s sleeve. “They’re professionals, don’t worry. We need to get to Mann.”

Ema was clearly torn, Apollo could see that much. She looked from him to Pauling and back again, finally seeming to make up her mind as her grip tightened on her gun. “…Yeah. Don’t die, okay? And you,” she added, glaring at the Medic. “If I come back and he’s half-robot or missing his spleen or something, I will _eviscerate_ you.”

The Medic chuckled. “I vould not risk your wrath, _fräulein._ ”

Pauling was actually grinning at Ema, despite the clear urgency in her bearing. “This is really cute and all, but if we could…?”

Ema nodded, throwing Apollo one last concerned glare before moving off.

The Medic chuckled as he produced a first aid kit from the depths of his coat. “You haff a remarkable friend zere, Herr Attorney.”

“No kidding,” Apollo croaked. “I just hope she doesn’t do anything too dangerous.”

The Spy snorted, leaning against a fragment of railing that had remained intact. “It is a bit late for that, I think. A moment ago she jumped onto one of those things to secure a close-range headshot.”

It hurt to sigh, but Apollo couldn’t help himself. 

~~~~~~~~

 _I’m a bad mentor. A really, really bad mentor._ That was the only possible explanation. Phoenix couldn’t quite remember when he had taught Apollo and Athena to rush headlong into danger, but even if he hadn’t, he must have been remiss somewhere in not telling them to exercise caution. His heart hammered harder every time he lost sight of either of them, and he had to actively stop himself from chasing after Apollo when he left the warding circle of mercenaries. 

Athena had been okay when she was safely ignored with Blackquill, but then she had run to save Apollo from a pair of robo-yeti. The last he’d seen of her, she was dancing around the edge of the courtroom away from Mann’s personal guard ‘bot. Hopefully Mann would prioritize his own safety over chasing her down. 

But Apollo had been knocked across the room, landing somewhere among the rubble. Phoenix had heard Pauling calling for the Medic, who had swiftly disengaged from the fight and rushed over to help. 

_Worry about them later, getting to them would be suicide. Worry about you._

It really wasn’t a bad idea. Even with a numerical advantage, the mercs had had a hard time holding their own, much less keeping the robots from descending on him. He had been saved by the last-minute intervention of the Heavy more than once already. The huge man had laughed in a robot’s face, tanked its punch, and continued right on laughing. He really was made of sterner stuff.

The fight hadn’t looked good at the outset, even if it had been only five robots facing down nine mercenaries. The Spy had been disposed of quickly, picked up bodily and thrown into the gallery. None of the others had even batted an eye; Phoenix had to wonder how jaded they were that taking a casualty like that could produce so little reaction. The robots, apparently identifying mercenary-tossing as an effective tactic, did the same to the Demoman… only for him to come roaring back, wielding Blackquill’s katana over his head and hacking off robotic limbs. One of the robots had fallen, but the Demo had been forcefully disarmed shortly thereafter.

Between the damage the sword had inflicted and Apollo accidentally luring one of the robotic combatants away, there were only three robots remaining to fight the seven standing mercs. Unfortunately, that only made the fight roughly even: the Scout, Sniper, and Engineer weren’t particularly suited for direct physical combat, and the Pyro was rather useless without their tools. 

But the mercenaries had an advantage the robots didn’t: _teamwork._

In between being terrified by near misses, Phoenix was constantly impressed by the way the mercs worked together to keep the yeti at bay, drawing attention away from endangered comrades at just the right time and creating openings for each other. As he watched, the Engineer and Heavy took turns baiting and battering one of the robots, the Engineer jumping clear of the thing’s attacks while the Heavy parried them out of the way. The metal gloves the Russian had made from the fists of their first fallen foe were doing the most damage by far, but they were also wearing out appallingly fast—soon, they wouldn’t be any better than brass knuckles.

The pair seemed to know that, and exchanged a quick nod as the robot turned just a little bit slower than it had before. The Heavy closed on it, meeting its haymaker with one of his own. Both took the full force of the other’s blow. They went down in a confused tangle, but the large man weighed the robot down, bringing its head closer to the floor. In a flash, the Engineer was there, tugging a cord on his robotic hand. It started to spin, dangerously fast. Without a moment’s hesitation, the Texan plunged the improvised drill into the robo-yeti’s metal skull.

After a few moments of grinding, snapping noises and screeching robotic chatter, the goliath went limp. The Engineer tugged on his hand, only to find that it was stuck somehow in the robot’s head. For his part, the Heavy was groggily trying to push his way out from under the hunk of metal.

_One more down, but it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to help with…_

There were shouts of distress. The other mercs were clustered around the Scout, who seemed to have been clipped by a wild swing. One arm hung limply at his side. 

“Don’t worry, son!” roared the Soldier. “Through careful study, I have identified our path to SURE AND IMMEDIATE VICTORY! Sniper! Allow that thing to crush you!”

“You’re off yer rocker, mate…”

“Hm. Very well! We don’t have any honey, but I’ll have to give it a try…” The Soldier dived between one of the robots’ legs, coming up behind it and fastening his arms around its midsection as best he could.

“BEAR SUPLEXING TECHNIQUE NUMBER SEVENTEEN!” With a mighty yank, he pulled the robot a foot or so off its feet. As far as Phoenix could tell, the robo-yeti was entirely confused by this tactic and couldn’t even decide which attack to use. It flailed its arms noncommittally.

“Yeah, now that’s more like it!” shouted the Scout, leaping nimbly onto the robot’s head to provide additional lever action. With a great mechanical groaning and many warning beeps, the giant thing toppled backwards as the Soldier leaned back. It impacted head-first, leaving its cranium flopping at an odd angle to the rest of its body. It roared at them, but the rest of the body shut down almost immediately, collapsing with many assorted clanks on top of the Soldier. 

The Sniper glanced at the red-coated arms still fastened around the robot’s torso as he dodged another swipe from the last robot standing against them. “Oy, Soldier! You okay under there?”

One of the hands formed into a vigorous thumbs-up. “We Americans are too tough to be crushed by puny British kilograms!” The voice was slightly muffled, but confident. 

“Hrm.” Phoenix turned to see that the Heavy had regained his feet and was helping the Engineer disentangle his hand. “Was not bad number seventeen. Zhanna taught you, Soldier?” 

The thumbs-up swiveled in the Heavy’s direction. “Yes! We practiced on increasingly large woodland creatures!”

“MMM-MMMPH!” The Pyro drew their attention as they and the Sniper dodged around the last robot. 

“Oh, yeah,” the Engineer said, tugging on his hand. “You boys need help?”

“What I _need,_ ” the Sniper yelled back, “is a bloody _weapon!_ ”

 _A weapon,_ Phoenix thought desperately. _Wait… I’ve got it!_ He dove for the remnants of the defense’s desk, digging through the rubble. _Please don’t be broken…_ He finally uncovered a gray box with the words “Electro-Sapper” across the top. _Yes!_

The robot was still distracted… he had an opening. He hastily unwound the contact wires as he rushed back to where the Sniper and Pyro were still scrambling away from the final robot. It turned away from him, and Phoenix put on a burst of speed he hadn’t known he was capable of. He slapped the contact points onto the robo-yeti’s broad back, and the sapper sprung to life. The effect was immediate: blue sparks consumed the robot’s chassis and its joints failed, a strong smell of burning silicon wafting from the robo-corpse. 

Phoenix caught the eye of the Sniper, who nodded in thanks. “Is that it? No, wait… Mann’s guard…” He looked around the courtroom—Mann and his final robo-yeti had disappeared.

“They went through the hole in the roof!” Athena’s voice came from a rubble-covered corner of the courtroom. She emerged from the rocks she’d apparently been using as cover, thankfully unharmed. “Looks like Mann decided to cut and run. Ema and Miss Pauling went after him.”

Phoenix heaved a sigh of relief. On balance, that was very good news. The mercs (including the Spy, who was somehow alive again—a trick of the trade, no doubt) were gathering around the Medic, and he hurried over. 

“Vould you all _please_ stop crowding ze patient,” the doctor was grousing. “Ah, Herr Wright. Your subordinate vill be fine, provided he is taken to a hospital. I _vas_ envisioning a treatment plan vith substantial upgrades—“ Apollo made a whimpering noise “—but given ze attitude of Fräulein Detective I vill have to simply remand him over to ze ‘licensed’ professionals. If you could-”

Athena broke in. “Great, Apollo lives! Could you take a look at Simon? I think his arm is broken…”

“I do NOT need THEIR help!” Blackquill yelled from his patch of floor.

“Tch. I haff dealt vith many patients vith more pride zan good sense,” the Medic said, walking briskly towards the prone prosecutor. “Now hold still und let me see zis. I don’t suppose _you_ vould care for ze upgrades…”

“Absolutely not,” Blackquill ground out, teeth clenched.

“Bah. So little innovative spirit in people today…”

Phoenix turned away, looking around the room. There was one last thing they needed to take care of before people started getting put in ambulances. “Your Honor?” He called. 

No response.

“Your Honor, it’s safe now,” he said towards the judge’s stand. “They’re gone.”

“…Are you sure?” came a voice from the beneath the desk.

Phoenix looked to the mercs, who all nodded. “We’re pretty sure, yes.”

“Alright then…” The judge hauled himself back up into his seat. “Well then, if nobody minds, I’m going to go find the nearest secure bunker and get myself rather drunk…”

“Actually, Your Honor,” Phoenix said, “could we get a verdict first?” 

“Yes, please,” echoed Blackquill. “I would hate to leave a case undone like this.”

The judge blinked. “I… had almost forgotten. I suppose extreme stress will do that to a person. Very well.” He cleared his throat. “This court finds the employees of Reliable Excavation and Demolition… surprisingly, and against my better judgment… Not Guilty.” He rapped his gavel.

There wasn’t any confetti, but the light puffs of dust that fell from the destroyed ceiling felt just as good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the Mann at the back said "Everyone attack!" and it turned into a courtroom blitz!
> 
> I'm pretty sure this is the longest single chapter I've ever written, and definitely the most involved action scene. We're not quite done with thrill ride yet, but please leave a review letting me know how I did on this monster of a sequence.


	10. Chapter 10

_Of course they jumped out of the giant hole. What the hell were you expecting, Ema? That the insane billionaire with the army of robots would come quietly once he saw his yeti go down?_ She cursed at herself as she flew through the courthouse lobby, Pauling hot on her heels.

“What do you think that thing’s top speed is?” she asked as they ran, dodging around startled attorneys and haggard clerks. 

“Assuming it doesn’t turn into a vehicle, which I’m not saying is outside the realm of possibility,” Pauling replied, moving surprisingly quickly for someone her size, “I’d say forty, forty-five miles an hour? And it’s not going to have to worry about traffic.”

_I mean, granted, I’ve only got a couple inches on her, but still… she took the stairs three at a time, what are her calves even made of?_ Ema shook herself—now was not the time to be bemoaning her poor exercise regimen. “This way!” she called, directing them toward the parking lot. “We’re going to need a ride, and my scooter will be able to dodge traffic.”

“Can we take mine instead?” Pauling asked as they hit the doors. “It’s got some, um… supplies that might be useful.” 

Ema was about to express cautious approval when something caught her eye. “Actually… grab anything you need, I have a better idea.” She bolted for the garish figure that had just pulled into his space. “Fo—er, Gavin! Police emergency, I need your bike!”

Prosecutor Gavin pushed up the visor on his helmet, surprise clear in his eyes. “Detective? Why do you-” 

“What part of ‘emergency’ do you not get?!” Ema yelled, half-shooing, half-pushing him out of the seat. She was about to mount the bike herself when Pauling came racing up, eyes alight and cradling a shotgun.

“Even better! Can you hold this? I’ll drive.” 

Ema blinked as the weapon was shoved into her arms. It was a compact model that could theoretically be fired with only one hand, not that she’d like to try. A number of very good questions ran through her mind, including _why do you have this_ and _where am I supposed to holster it._ “Why are _you_ driving?” was what actually came out. 

“Because I’m used to driving dangerously with a back-weighted bike, now come on!” Pauling was pulling on a helmet that she must have grabbed from her scooter. 

_That’s probably a good idea, where did I park—_ A purple helmet bearing a stylized “G” was pushed in front of her. She turned, blinking in surprise at Gavin. “Er… thanks.”

“Clearly you and the well-armed _fräulein_ have somewhere dangerous and exciting to be, _ja?_ ” he said, a hint of a laugh dancing around his eyes. “Best not to waste time.”

She nodded, fastening the helmet one-handed as Pauling revved the cycle. Swinging one leg over the rear seat, she clutched the gun with one hand and wrapped the other firmly around Pauling’s waist. “Okay, let’s go!” 

The bike roared as Pauling loosed the throttle, zipping them out of the lot and turning nimbly into the flow of traffic. “We follow the carnage!” Pauling shouted over the noise of the wind. “And maybe the sirens, if the police have actually mobilized.”

“Not likely!” Ema shouted back. “Do we have a plan here?”

Pauling swerved through a messy intersection that boasted several cars with giant fist-shaped dents. _We’re on the right track, at least._ Ema let the shifts in Pauling’s weight direct her own—getting the both of them dashed on the pavement or against a car wouldn’t be helpful. 

“A plan? You’re a good shot and you’ve got a gun!” Pauling yelled. She sounded downright _cheery,_ like zigzagging through traffic after a mechanical monstrosity was her idea of a good time. There was a significant bump as she mounted the curb, sending pedestrians diving out of the way in front of them.

“This is a _shotgun!_ I’m not going to be much of a gunner with a shotgun!” Ema yelled back. 

“Well, it’s what I had with the scooter!” 

They rounded a corner. Ema hadn’t seen all the clues Pauling was using to track their prey, but there, just a couple blocks away, a hulking gorilla-esque form could clearly be seen running on all fours. The bike thumped back onto the street, Pauling opening the throttle wide to zip down an open lane flanked on both sides by tossed-aside cars. Ema tightened her hold a bit as they picked up speed, her coat tugging on her shoulders as it rippled behind her.

“You’re gonna have to slow down when we get close!” Ema shouted, checking the gun as best she could. _Safety still on, shell chambered… wait…_ “Is this thing silenced?!”

Pauling laughed nervously. “Um… yeah. It’s got a built-in suppressor and that’s… that’s not illegal, right? Please tell me it isn’t, I didn’t check the regs in this state…”

“…No, but my list of questions is getting longer.” 

“Perfect. Fine. That is completely fine. I promise I can explain… well, not everything, but most of it.” One hand briefly left the handlebars to point at the approaching robot. “Get ready!”

The adrenaline already surging through Ema’s veins seemed to spike further, accompanied by a fierce tug of fear in her gut. She shoved the latter down, wrapping both arms around her driver to get both hands on the gun. She flipped the safety off and rested the barrel on her shoulder, keeping one arm firmly wrapped around her driver’s waist. 

Focusing on the robot, she found Gray Mann’s furious eyes boring into her. Apparently he hadn’t forgiven her for shooting him, even if he _was_ still alive somehow. _Right. Don’t bother aiming for him, try to take down the robot._ She doubted that her previous jump-and-grab tactic would end quite so well this time. Pauling was slowing as she pulled closer to their target, matching its speed. Their path was clear and their speed reasonable enough that Ema felt okay straightening up, mounting the barrel of the gun on Pauling’s shoulder. As they pulled closer and closer, Ema swiveled between targets. _Main body’s too armored, can’t get a clear shot on the head from this angle… joints, maybe?_

She sighted in on the nearest leg joint, breathing in and out slowly. They were as close as she figured they would get; her finger tightened on the trigger…

The robot slammed its heels into the ground, decelerating and whipping out of her field of view. 

“Shit!” she yelled. Suddenly there was a wall of cars coming up fast, and she instinctively tightened her grip on Pauling’s torso as the motorcycle started bobbing and weaving through gaps in what was clearly a traffic jam. _Ass, balls, another ass, holy hell I think I’m going to be sick…_

Pauling was slowing down, but not by much. “Are they still behind us?” she shouted over her shoulder.

There was a robotic roar behind them, followed by the sound of car ceilings being crushed. 

“Yeah!” Ema yelled in Pauling’s ear. She risked a glance behind—moving on top of the cars instead of between them, the yeti was now faster than they were. “And they’re gaining!”

“Good!” 

“In what universe is that a good thing?!”

“We’re not going to get to turn around any time soon, if they chase us we can’t lose them!” 

“If they chase us, they can also _kill us!_ ” 

The road was broadening, the cars starting to move a little more freely. _If I remember right… that might be our best bet._ “Hey! Take the next right exit!”

Pauling glanced up at a road sign as it whizzed overhead. “The freeway! Good idea, we’ll have more space! ...Plus, we get to see what your friend’s bike can do.”

_She could have said that with a little less relish… oh shiiiiiiii…_ Ema’s mind blanked for a moment as they hit the freeway, Pauling putting on speed like there was a demon behind them. Ema put her head down, wrapping both arms around Pauling as best she could as her _apparently insane_ driver accelerated even further. 

The initial panic faded, however, as the thrill rose. _How the hell am I enjoying this?_ she thought incredulously to herself. _Is mortal danger actually more enjoyable than taking statements and dealing with prosecutors?_

_…Yes. Yes it is._

There was a monstrous crashing noise behind her. _Whoops, there’s the panic again…_ She craned her head to check their pursuit.

Not only had Mann not given up, he appeared to actually be keeping pace with them. The robo-yeti was leaping from car to car, almost like it was surfing on a wave of terrified motorists. 

Ema straightened up a tad as they hit a comparatively clear stretch of road. Mann couldn’t pull the same disappearing trick twice, not when their positions were reversed like this. However, she was going to have to take her shots one-handed, and aim high to avoid accidentally splattering the drivers behind them. Hopefully.

She contorted her body around, squinting as she aimed down the barrel at the approaching yeti. A little closer… and… _fire._

The suppressor kept the noise down and reduced the recoil a bit, but the thing still had a hell of a kick. Her shot went far wide, and she winced as her elbow jerked with the recoil. She brought the gun in front of Pauling’s stomach to work the pump handle, kicking out the spent shell.

“We need to get closer!” she yelled in Pauling’s ear. “Slow down a bit, let them catch up!”

Pauling nodded. “How will I know if they get too close? I don’t want to be checking my mirrors at this speed!” 

“If I scream and my fingers dig into your stomach, speed up!” She paused. “That... didn’t come out right.” 

She could feel Pauling’s laugh. “Buy me a drink first, huh? Slowing it down!”

Ema was suddenly glad for the murderous psychopath bearing down on them, as it distracted her from the absolutely _massive_ blush creeping up her cheeks. _Don’t get distracted. Gotta shoot a robot._

Said robot _crunched_ onto a nearby car, roaring at them. The car swerved dangerously, but to the driver’s credit they stayed in their lane. Ema extended her gun arm, loosening her elbow to absorb the recoil. She took aim at the yeti’s shoulder and squeezed the trigger. 

The sight of Mann ducking in fear when the gun fired _was_ gratifying, but she was too high. Not that she’d mind missing if it meant catching Mann in the crossfire; even if he was immune to bullets she’d love to see how well he took a shotgun blast to the face. She brought the gun back around Pauling’s stomach to pump it. _I can’t have many more shells in this thing… Make it count, Ema. Put all that time on the range to use._

The yeti had jumped to an even closer car while she racked in the next shot, which was fine with her as long as it stayed out of arm’s reach. She lined up her shot, squeezed the trigger… _yes!_

The shot connected solidly with the robot’s shoulder, hammering a dent into it but not getting through the armor. _Shit,_ she thought, racking the next shell. _Can’t damage the arms, can’t get a shot on the legs, how am I going to stop it from—_

The robot leaped again, crashing onto a car _right_ behind them. She blinked at the metallic face that was suddenly close enough to spit on. _I had a plan for this,_ the back of her brain said, trying to focus. _What was it, something like…_

She screamed, squeezing hard on Pauling, who obligingly sped up away from the robot just as it swiped out at them. 

_That. Yeah, that was it. Good job, self._ She took a couple seconds of frantically clinging to Pauling to let her heart stop pounding quite so hard. _Seven. Thousand. Shits._

The roar came from behind them again, closer than she’d like. She whipped around, squeezing the trigger as she saw their pursuer land. Her hand was still shaking from the scare, however, and Mann didn’t even bat an eye. _Focus,_ she told herself furiously as she worked the pump again. _Breathe. Don’t let him scare you, he’s just a gray-skinned son of a bitch with too much money._

She spun again to track him, breathing more regularly. _Come on, come on… I bet you just loved scaring me like that, didn’t you? Try it again, I dare you…_

Mann seemed to have heard her thoughts, as the robot leapt onto a car cruising right next to them. She tracked the arc of the jump, the barrel of the gun lining up perfectly with the robot’s head as it landed not two meters away. 

_Gotcha._

She blasted the damn thing right in its stupid face. Her off hand left Pauling’s side to whip up to the pump, racking in another shell for a follow-up blast.

The gun ran dry, but there wasn’t much head left to deal with. The robot collapsed on top of the car it was riding, a panicked Mann holding on for dear life atop it. 

Pauling pulled in front of the car in question, letting Ema gesture with the shotgun to get the driver to pull over. It was as they were getting off the bike that she finally heard the distant scream of sirens. _About damn time,_ she thought, passing the shotgun back to Pauling. She kept her sidearm trained on Mann as the cops filed in, making a much bigger clamor than was actually necessary at this point. Thus relieved, she leaned on the hood of a cop car and let out a long, exhausted breath.

Pauling was pacing like mad in front of her, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Oh my _god_ that was _incredible_ there were _robots_ and _motorcycles_ and you were _amazing_ and oh _shit_ those are news vans I can’t be in the news my boss will _actually literally kill me…_ ”

Ema grabbed her by the shoulder, bringing her pacing to an abrupt halt. “Hey.” Pauling looked troubled in a way she hadn’t before—her eyes kept darting to the news crews mobilizing near the side of the road. “If you don’t want your involvement to be public, it doesn’t have to be. I still have questions, and you probably want to collect the mercs.” She pointed at a nearby cruiser. “If you get in that car right now instead of pulling some kind of disappearing act, we can go back to the station, the reporters will never get your name or picture, and we can talk.” 

Pauling still looked uneasy. “I… getting arrested isn’t much better…”

“You’re not being arrested,” Ema said firmly, taking her other shoulder as well. “You can ride shotgun if it makes you feel better, and I promise our conversation won’t be in a holding cell. If anyone _tries_ to arrest you, they answer to me.”

That seemed to work. Pauling stopped fidgeting quite so much, and finally looked Ema dead in the eye. “…Really? That’s… really generous for a cop.”

“Yeah, well…” _You’re a badass and really kinda cute._ “You just helped bring in an incredibly dangerous perp. And, y’know, you also saved my life.”

“I think we’re even on that last one,” Pauling said, smiling. “But okay. When you’re ready to go, I’ll be slouched in the car trying to avoid attention.”

Ema watched her as she left. _That’s going to be an interesting conversation… and this is going to be a lot of paperwork._ She groaned inwardly as the ranking officer from the dispatched forces approached. _Right. I’m either coming out of this fired or with a commendation… god_ damn _I need a Snackoo._


	11. Chapter 11

Phoenix let out an exhausted breath, leaning against a half-destroyed bench. A few medical personnel were still hanging around, but the actual medevac procedures were finally complete. The ambulances had arrived at the courthouse in good time. The paramedics had immediately established an uneasy but productive truce with the Medic, and Apollo, Simon, and the injured bystanders had been swiftly rushed off to the hospital. Athena had volunteered to accompany them, promising to keep Phoenix in the loop. Phoenix wasn’t sure how much of that was concern for her friends and how much was a desire to dodge the clerical rigmarole involved in getting their clients officially released. 

Said clients were still celebrating their victory by the time the ambulances left. _They’re certainly… passionate,_ Phoenix thought. _And they did just overcome some incredible odds._

“ _A-hem._ ” A cough by his elbow drew his attention. The Medic was fidgeting with his gloves. “Herr Wright, vhen can ve expect our gear back? I vould very much like to attend to my injured experi… compatriots.” He glanced in the direction of the team—the Scout’s arm hung limply at his side, the Soldier looked distinctly more pancake-like than he had previously, and the Heavy’s hands were dripping blood.

“I’ll try to get everything sorted as soon as possible,” Phoenix assured him over the Heavy’s boisterous laughter. “But by the same token, when can we expect to be paid?”

The Spy appeared beside them, and Phoenix managed not to jump. Even when he wasn’t actually invisible, the man was incredibly stealthy. “Ze contract was taken out by our employer, no? Best to ask her when she returns from dealing with Mann.”

“Right… well, could you guys stay with the police until she and Ema get back?” Phoenix felt a brief pang of worry for the detective—this wasn’t quite the sort of thing the police were used to. A fleet of squad cars had sped past the courthouse not long before the paramedics arrived, presumably chasing after the fleeing robot, but the police had rebuffed his attempts to get an update on the situation. “I’ll start the paperwork to get you your stuff back, so… don’t break anything, okay?”

The Spy chuckled. “Do not worry. I doubt any of us want to stick around any more than ze police want us to remain.”

A number of nervous bailiffs were circling the celebrating team, clearly unsure of what exactly they were supposed to do now that the professional killers had been acquitted. Phoenix couldn’t suppress a smile. “You can say that again.”

The two left to rejoin the impromptu party. Phoenix ran through a mental checklist of after-trial tasks left to perform as he finished up the formalities with the court clerks. _Check in with Apollo and Athena at the hospital, file for compensation for the medical bills, pick up the tickets to Trucy’s show this weekend, do I invite the mercs out for a celebratory dinner? No. Definitely not. Why did I even consider that?_

He reclaimed the mercenaries’ more pedestrian possessions from evidence without much difficulty, but the more destructive implements were all being kept at the police station. That created a bit of an issue: how, exactly, he was going to get his clients back there to pick up their massive amounts of ordnance. Usually, acquitted defendants had their own transportation or took the bus, but a brief mental image of the team piled into a city bus dissuaded him from suggesting that route. As he considered, Phoenix’s eyes wandered to the police detail that had finally arrived to inspect the wreckage of the courtroom. Five minutes later, he’d convinced them to give them all a lift back to the station, mainly on the strength of the “do you really want these people to stay here amongst the general public” argument. 

By the time they arrived, there were already the beginnings of a media circus in front of the building. The sound of camera shutters grated on Phoenix’s ears as he herded the mercs inside. _I can’t wait to see what the headlines say tomorrow. Just keep smiling… look like you know what you’re doing… we’re totally heroes here. Just as long as nobody gets interviewed._

Moving the mercs was like herding cats; they kept grandstanding for the cameras the whole way in. As he finally managed to get the Scout through the doors, Phoenix felt a surge of sympathy for Pauling.

Pauling herself happened to be waiting for them in the lobby, much to the excitement of the team. She was immediately swamped with questions, but she took command with admirable ease. _She’s been at this a while if she can get them to shut up for ten seconds._ Her practiced control conflicted a bit with her appearance, however; her hair had half-escaped from its bob and her face was flushed with the signs of a recent adrenaline high. Phoenix made a mental note to get the story out of Ema later.

“The good news is, I’ve already gotten your stuff out of lockup. And it looks like you guys got the hats back, great.” She jerked a thumb at the room behind her. “Gear up and get ready to move, I want you all two hundred miles away from here by tomorrow. Yes, Sniper, your van’s out of impound.”

There was a veritable stampede as the team charged the door, leaving Pauling behind in their rush to reclaim their toys. Pauling waited until the door closed behind them before slumping into a nearby chair. She let out a long, exhausted sigh as Phoenix approached. He coughed quietly to get her attention. 

She started, sitting up and focusing on him with a visible effort. “Oh. Right. The defense. Wright, wasn’t it?”

_You’re not wrong._ “Of the Wright Anything Agency, yes.” Phoenix extended a hand, which Pauling shook. “I wanted to discuss our fee?” 

“Oh yeah. I guess you totally did get them off, didn’t you? Wow. I’m… not sure if you’re very good or very lucky. Er, no offense.”

“None taken.” 

“Anyway. Nine million dollars, right? Do you mind being paid in gold?”

Phoenix’s brow furrowed. “Er… yes, actually. A bank transfer would probably be better.”

“Right. Of course. Well… fortunately the specifics of that aren’t my responsibility. I’ll let my boss know you were successful. This is gonna be a hell of a report…” She seemed to lose herself in thought.

“Er,” Phoenix said, attempting to get the conversation back on track. “Where can I expect the transfer to come from? Reliable Excavation and Demolition?”

“What?” Pauling snapped out of her reverie. “Oh, no, it’ll probably come from some anonymous account out in the Caymans. Or maybe the Balkans. Don’t worry too much about it.”

“…Sure.” That _was_ a little worrying, but who was he to question the banking practices of people who hired teams of psychopaths?

A door opened forcefully somewhere behind him, and he turned to see a very determined-looking Ema Skye marching out of the chief’s office and directly towards them. 

Phoenix was relieved to see that she was in one piece, if a bit bruised. “Ema! Good to see you’re okay.”

She gave him a tired smile in response as she approached. “Same to you. How’s Justice?”

“The Medic said he’d be okay, but he won’t be getting out of bed for a while. He and Athena are at the hospital with Prosecutor Blackquill.”

“I tell him to avoid getting knocked out, so he goes and gets himself into a fight with a robot,” she groused. “That’s just like him.”

Pauling smirked up at her. “I don’t know that you’re one to talk on the being-careful front.”

They stared each other down for a moment, and Phoenix suddenly had the distinct impression that he was intruding. Pauling stood, stretching, as Ema clamped a guiding hand on her shoulder. “I need to talk to the facilitator here,” Ema said, glancing at Phoenix. “I’ll call you guys later?”

Phoenix found himself nodding. “Er, sure. We’ll probably postpone the party at least until Apollo and Blackquill are out of the hospital, but a win like this demands some celebration.”

Ema waved back at him as she towed Pauling off. “Count me in!”

He watched them go, rubbing his chin gently. He really would need to hear the whole story of what happened with that last robot. 

His train of thought was interrupted by the crash of a door behind him and the sound of a minigun spinning up. 

“HEAVY IS BACK, BABIES!” 

A stream of very loud, very excited mercenaries burst from the room, roaring with glee and coaxing as many metallic noises from their equipment as possible. Phoenix noticed a glowing red beam streaming out of a device in the Medic’s hands. The Scout’s broken arm was at the other end of the beam, and it seemed to be un-breaking before his eyes. _Well that’s… handy. I wonder why I’ve never seen one before._ He glanced at the Medic’s broad smile, remembered the man’s file, and resolved to never think about it again.

He was suddenly surrounded by the entire team, the recipient of handshakes, hearty backslaps, and what felt like wrist-shattering high fives. The Soldier marched up to him, silent among the boisterous mercs. The others quieted down a bit as their companion clapped Phoenix on the shoulder.

The Soldier stood ramrod-straight, looking Phoenix unblinkingly in the eye. “You, sir,” he said, “are the least-despicable man in blue I have ever met.” One hand snapped crisply to the rim of his helmet in a perfect salute, which Phoenix did his best to imitate. The others saluted as well, each in their own fashion. 

“Thanks,” Phoenix said. “We haven’t had a case like this… well, ever, really, and it was certainly memorable.” He glanced around at the beaming team. “Good luck with whatever mayhem you get pulled into next. Just promise not to get in too deep, okay?”

The Heavy snorted. “We have better promise. Next time, it will be _our_ mayhem.” There were noises of enthusiastic agreement.

Phoenix cleared his throat nervously. “Er. Sure. But for legal purposes, if I ever see you in court again, I never heard that.” 

A sharp whistle sounded behind him. “Van’s out back, everybody! No jostling, no whining, and no sharp objects in the back!” Phoenix turned to see Pauling striding up, tailed at a distance by Ema. “I’ll meet you all at rally point Charlie in twenty-four hours. Engie, see what you can do about the tel…” She glanced at Phoenix. “…The telephone that we set up there.”

“Ay, I think you mean—“ The Scout cut off suddenly as a large hand descended over his mouth. Phoenix looked pointedly away from the group, studying a blank section of wall with intense interest. 

“ _Anyway,_ don’t talk to the press on your way out, don’t get in trouble, you know the protocols. I’ll see you soon.” Phoenix could practically hear her glaring at the Scout. He didn’t turn back until the ever-present cacophony that surrounded the team faded out beyond the door. 

Pauling waited for several seconds after they were gone before letting out a long breath. “Ohhhhh thank god that’s over with.” She straightened, turning to Phoenix. “Normally I would offer to put you guys on retainer, but I highly doubt the team will be allowed within a hundred miles of this city any time soon. So… sorry about the missed business.”

Phoenix shook his head, grinning ruefully. “Not a problem. No offense, Miss Pauling, but I wouldn’t be too disappointed if I never saw your team in court again. One case with them is quite enough, thank you.” _And my condolences for having to work with them on a regular basis,_ he added mentally. 

She laughed tiredly. “They’re not so bad, really, they all just see the world differently than we do. Good luck dealing with the press.”

“Y’know, after today,” Phoenix said, grinning, “that feels almost too easy.”

Pauling nodded. “I probably won’t see you around. Well…” she glanced over at where Ema was frowning at a report. “Maybe. We’ll see. At any rate, I should call my boss. Have a good day!”

Phoenix waved farewell as he headed for the door. _If she’s an underling, I wonder what her boss is like…_ His train of thought was interrupted as he caught sight of the van careening out of the police station, its tires squealing as it swerved around the onlookers. He could just make out the shouting coming from the back.

“Keep yer ‘ands off the steering wheel, kid!”

“Ay, we can take our time with the exit, right? Give the cameras a show?”

“A professional doesn’t swan around for the media. Demo, there should be a flask under the seat—pass it around, wouldja?”

“Aye, mate! …Ach, what is this?”

“Share with victorious comrade, Demo… mm. Coffee is not bad, Sniper.”

“Bloody filth is what it is. ‘Ere, I’ve got mah own…”

“Mm-mm-mmmmph!”

“Ooh, ja, I second Herr Pyro’s burger idea.”

“Darn skippy. I could eat a pig and the horse it rode in on.”

“Burgers are filled with the spirit of America! Also, I’m hungry too.”

“Will somebody PLEASE shut ze back door?! I do not wish to be roadkill for a second time today.”

Phoenix watched, half-smiling, as the van broke free of the crowd and drove off into the sunset.

~~~~~~~~

_Ring. Ri-click._

“It’s Pauling.”

“Give me good news, Miss Pauling.”

Pauling glanced around. A police station wasn’t exactly a secure location; she’d have to be vague. She was confident in the phone’s encryption, but one never knew what sharp-eared detectives were hanging about. _Well, I know of at least one who’s on the other side of that door waiting for me._ “The team is free. Gray Mann is looking at a long time in jail.”

“Mmmm. I would have preferred that he end up dead.”

“Well, he was for a second.”

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. “That reminds me, I need to find where that particular technology leaked… regardless. Where are they now?”

“Headed to Charlie. I said I’d be there in a day.”

“Indeed? And what pressing business do you have in the city that you expect to take so long?”

Pauling was suddenly very glad that this wasn’t a video call. She did her best to keep her voice neutral. “Cleanup with the police. I had to get personally involved; I need to do some… scrubbing. I, ah, made a contact I should be able to use.”

“Mm.” There was the click of nails on a wooden desk. “I trust you’ll be back on the grid tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” 

“And the defense? Are we otherwise compromised?”

“No. The attorneys were impressive, but they don’t want anything else to do with us once they’re paid. My… contact helped me avoid direct exposure.”

“Really? Quite useful indeed. Do I need to allocate some of the discretionary fund to help this person stay quiet?”

“N—yeah, actually, that might help. Not too much, though, just… enough for a nice dinner. They’ll get suspicious if a bunch of money just drops into their bank account.”

“Hmm.” 

There was something unreadable in that syllable. Pauling winced. “You know how it is with cops,” she said, trying to sound as annoyed as possible. “They want to know, but they don’t want to know too much.”

The older woman snorted derisively. “True enough. Take care of it; I’ll transfer you the money while paying the defense and contact you in thirty-six hours. I have a contract I need you to issue to a specialist by the name of Shelley De Killer.”

“Roger that. Thank you, ma’am.”

“And Miss Pauling?”

“Er… yes?”

“Have fun. But I expect you to work on lying to those you trust.”

The line went dead. Pauling blinked in surprise, feeling a blush creep up her neck. _Well… shit. She knows. And she’s… apparently okay with it? Weird. Well, today was weird all around, even by our standards. Then again…_ She took a deep breath, cataloguing the day’s events.

_Crazed egomaniacs, robots, violence, and overly dramatic people, all with a vibrant color palette._

Actually, that sounded just about right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seven months later, I finally finish this monster of a fic. It's the longest single thing I've ever written and it was a lot of fun (and late nights editing with my wonderful beta reader) getting here. I hope that anyone who's stuck around long enough to see the end has enjoyed the ride. If you're so inspired, please leave a comment or review; I'm always looking to get better.
> 
> Merry Smissmas to all, and to all a good night!


End file.
